LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


r, 

Class 


BY   PERCY   MACKAYE 


The  Canterbury  Pilgrims.     A  Comedy. 

Feuris,  the  Wolf.    A  Tragedy. 

Jeanne  D'Arc. 

Sappho  and  Phaon.    •• 

The  Scarecrow.  A  Tragedy  of  the  Ludicrous. 

Mater.    An  American  Study  in  Comedy.  •' 

The  Playhouse  and  the  Play. 


Uniform,  i2mo.     $1.25  net,  each. 


Lincoln:  A  Centenary  Ode.    izmo.   -j5c.net 


THE  PLAYHOUSE  AND  THE  PLAY 

AND    OTHER   ADDRESSES 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA  •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE    PLAYHOUSE   AND 
THE   PLAY 


AND    OTHER   ADDRESSES 

CONCERNING   THE   THEATRE 

AND   DEMOCRACY   IN 

AMERICA 


BY 

PERCY   MACKAYE 


gorfc 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1909 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1909, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  April,  1909. 


J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


THE    DEAR   AND    HONORED    MEMORY 
OP    MY    FATHER 

STEELE   MACKAYE 

RENASCENT    SPIRIT,    RESOURCEFUL    PIONEER 
UNDAUNTED    VINDICATOR    OF    THE    THEATRE    IN    AMERICA 

DURING    TWENTY    YEARS 

AS     DRAMATIST,    ACTOR,    DIRECTOR,    ORGANIZER 
AND    INVENTOR 


190805 


AN  EXCERPT  FROM  "JUSTICE  AND  LIBERTY" 
BY  G.  LOWES  DICKINSON 

A  Banker  and  a  Professor  are  Conversing 

The  Banker:  No  reasonable  man  imagines  that  there  may 
not  be  changes  in  human  nature  whereby  things  may  become 
possible  that  are  not  possible  now.  Only,  we  say,  first 
change  your  human  nature  before  you  begin  meddling  with 
institutions. 

The  Professor:  That  again  sounds  so  reasonable,  yet  really, 
in  practice,  is  so  obstructive.  For  if  it  be  true  that  institu 
tions  depend  on  human  nature,  it  is  also  true  that  human 
nature  depends  on  them,  and  on  our  ideas  about  them.  And 
if  you  treat  institutions  as  something  sacrosanct,  if  you  rule 
out  all  criticism  of  them,  and  all  experimenting  with  them, 
you  are  hindering  precisely  the  change  in  human  nature 
which  you  say  you  want,  by  suppressing  that  insurrection  of 
the  spirit  which  alone  can  bring  it  about.  .  .  .  What  really 
stirs  men  is  a  demonstration  that  the  order  under  which  they 
live  is  neither  reasonable  nor  just.  They  may  then  come  to 
find  it  so  intolerable  that  they  can  no  longer  rest  in  it.  And 
then,  and  then  only,  you  have  the  condition  of  your  change 
in  human  nature.  .  .  . 

The  first  condition  of  acquiring  knowledge  is  to  desire  it. 


NOTE 

OF  the  following  contents,  The  Playhouse 
and  the  Play  and  The  Drama  of  Democracy 
(the  latter  published  in  The  Columbia  Uni 
versity  Quarterly,  June,  1908)  are  addresses 
delivered  by  the  author,  in  1907-1908,  at  the 
universities  of  Harvard,  Yale,  Columbia,  Chi 
cago,  Michigan,  and  California,  The  Twentieth 
Century  Club  and  The  Book  and  Play  Club, 
Chicago,  The  MacDowell  Association  and  The 
League  for  Political  Education,  New  York, 
and  elsewhere;  The  Dramatist  as  Citizen  is 
an  address  delivered  in  February,  1909,  be 
fore  Harvard,  Yale,  Columbia,  and  Brown 
Universities,  The  League  for  Political  Edu 
cation,  New  York,  and  elsewhere;  Self- 
Expression  a?id  the  American  Drama  is 
reprinted,  by  permission,  from  The  North 
American  Review  for  September,  1908;  Art 
and  Democracy  is  an  address  given  before  The 
Society  for  Ethical  Culture,  New  York,  on 
Lincoln's  Birthday,  1908. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A  DOZEN  PROMPT  NOTES          .         .         .         .         .1 

INTRODUCTION  ........       7 

SOME  QUESTIONS  BEFORE  THE  CURTAIN    .         .         .29 
THE  PLAYHOUSE  AND  THE  PLAY       .         .         .         .41 

THE  DRAMA  OF  DEMOCRACY     .         .         .         .         .87 

THE  DRAMATIST  AS  CITIZEN     .....  121 

SELF-EXPRESSION  AND  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMA    .         .  155 

ART  AND  DEMOCRACY 183 

SOME  COMMENTS  BY  WAY  OF  EPILOGUE    .  .  193 


XUl 


A  DOZEN   PROMPT   NOTES 


A  DOZEN  PROMPT  NOTES 

i 

SVER  before  in  the  history  of  the  Am 
erican  theatre  has  the  future  of  our  na 
tive  drama  been  so  splendid  and  secure  in 
promise  as  to-day.  In  this  undoubted  fact  we 
may  well  take  joy  and  courage ;  yet  we  need  not 
be  blind  to  the  true  causes  of  the  fact.  The  true 
causes  for  the  unique  promise  and  the  encour 
aging  achievement  of  the  drama  to-day  arise 
not  from  any  conducive  qualifications  of  the 
existing  theatrical  system  as  a  private  specu 
lative  business,  but  from  that  great  reawaken 
ing  of  our  national  consciousness  which  every 
where  to-day  is  increasingly  alive  to  deeper 
significances  in  our  life  and  institutions." 

Page  27. 
II 

"  It  is  absurd  to  demand  that  a  business 
man   shall   ruin    his    private  business.     It  is 

3 


A    DOZEN    PROMPT    NOTES 

not  absurd,  however,  to  demand  that  a  private 
business,  whose  legitimate  function  is  that  of  a 
public  art,  shall  be  revolutionized  to  perform 
that  function  properly  by  ceasing  to  be  a 
business." 

Page  69. 

Ill 

"An  effectual  business  needs  no  subsidy; 
an  effectual  art  cannot  live  without  it." 

Page  207. 
IV 

"  The  status  of  the  playhouse  in  society  is  as 
vital  as  the  status  of  the  university  in  society. 
The  dignity  and  efficiency  of  the  one  demand 
the  same  safeguarding  against  inward  deteri 
oration  as  the  dignity  and  efficiency  of  the 
other.  The  functions  of  both  are  educative. 
The  safeguard  of  each  is  endowment." 

Page  79. 

V 

"  True  democracy  is  vitally  concerned  with 
beauty,  and  true  art  is  vitally  concerned  with 
citizenship." 

Page  190. 


A   DOZEN   PROMPT   NOTES 

VI 

"To  hold  commercial  managers  primarily 
responsible  for  the  evils  of  the  playhouse  is 
unreasonable.  The  managers  do  not  primarily 
shape  their  own  policies.  The  basic  nature  of 
the  existing  theatre  as  an  institution — its  nature 
as  a  private  speculative  business  —  is  the  great 
motivating  cause  which  logically  produces  the 
policies  of  the  managers.  For  tolerating  that 
unworthy  institutional  basis  of  the  theatre,  the 

public  is  responsible." 

Page  69. 

VII 

"  Distinct  from  Segregated  Drama  (a  fine 
art  for  the  few)  and  Vaudeville  (a  heteroge 
neous  entertainment  for  the  many),  exists, 
potential,  a  third  ideal :  the  ideal  of  the  Drama 
of  Democracy  —  the  drama  as  a  fine  art  for  the 
many." 

Page  103. 
VIII 

"  The  highest  potentiality  of  the  drama  can 
never  be  realized  until  the  theatre — the  drama's 
communal  instrument  —  shall  be  dedicated  to 
public,  not  private,  ends." 

Page  137. 
5 


A    DOZEN    PROMPT    NOTES 

IX 

"  Reformation  of  the  playhouse  is  not  a  mat 
ter  of  reforming  individuals,  but  of  reforming 

conditions." 

Page  85. 

X 

"  The  efficient  regulation  of  its  functions  to 
the  ends  of  greatest  public  service  is  the  con 
cern  of  the  leaders  of  the  American  people  — 
our  eminent  educators,  our  civic  societies,  our 

powerful  and  altruistic  citizens." 

Page  85. 

XI 

"A  house  of  private  speculation  is  not 
adapted  to  be  a  house  of  public  education." 

Page  128. 
XII 

"  Nevertheless,  night  after  night,  year  after 
year,  our  theatres  are  educating  our  people  by 
the  millions  and  tens  of  millions.  The  ques 
tion  is :  Shall  the  theatre  educate  those  mil 
lions  right  or  wrong  ?  " 

Page  84. 


INTRODUCTION 


INTRODUCTION 

vital  problems  which  confront  the 
-*-  drama  in  America  to-day  are  not  pri 
marily  questions  of  dramatic  art;  they  are 
questions  which  concern  the  opportunities  for 
dramatic  art  properly  to  exist  and  to  mature. 
Primarily,  therefore,  they  are  not  aesthetic 
questions;  they  are  civic  questions.  They 
are  questions  which  concern  a  potential  dra 
matic  art,  and  the  barriers  which  prevent  or 
retard  its  existence.  They  are  questions  which 
concern,  on  the  part  of  dramatic  artists, 
liberation ;  on  the  part  of  the  public,  enlighten 
ment,  i 

To  obtain  these  objects, 'a  thoroughgoing 
knowledge  and  discussion  of  all  important 
issues  of  the  drama  are  necessary  first  steps 
towrard  their  wise  solution.  Much  discussion 
and  some  knowledge  of  these  issues  have  of 
late  been  publicly  indulged  in  and  acquired, 
with  remarkably  encouraging  results ;  and  it  is 

9 


x  INTRODUCTION 

the  aim  of  this  volume  hopefully  to  do  its 
slight  part  in  urging  still  wider  discussion, 
still  more  searching  knowledge,  of  these  matters. 

Of  the  five  essays  here  included,  the 
first  concerns  itself  with  the  conditioning  in 
fluences  of  the  theatre  upon  the  drama;  the 
second,  with  a  possible  goal  for  our  native 
drama;  the  third,  with  the  civic  status  of  the 
dramatist's  profession;  the  fourth,  with  the 
need  of  leadership ;  the  fifth,  with  art  as 
public  service. 

Whatever  opinions  are  expressed  in  these 
pages  are  my  sincere  beliefs  at  this  time.  It 
does  not  follow,  however,  that  they  are  unal 
terable  beliefs.  I  shall  hope  to  profit  by  criti 
cism  and  possible  refutation  of  their  tenets  by 
minds  wiser  than  my  own ;  and  I  set  them  forth 
here  solely  for  the  sake  of  stimulating  inquiry 
and  knowledge  in  the  great  and  vital  subject 
which  they  inadequately  treat. 

For  centuries  of  Anglo-Saxon  tradition,  the 
theatre  has  held  an  unclassified  place  in  the 
structure  of  society.  Acknowledged  always 
as  a  powerful  influence  upon  the  lives  of  men, 

10 


INTRODUCTION 

it  has  never  been  systematically  utilized  as 
such  by  the  civic  leaders  of  men.  As  a  na 
tional  force,  it  has  never  been  correlated  with 
the  other  great  forces  of  citizenship,  of  law,  of 
industry,  of  statecraft,  of  patriotism.  Never 
theless  the  theatre,  in  its  proper  function,  is 
peculiarly  fitted  for  such  association. 

Why,  then,  have  the  nations  hitherto  failed 
so  to  organize  the  theatre  as  to  utilize  it  prop 
erly  as  a  national  force  ? 

Historically,  they  have  not  always  failed  to 
do  so. 

Three  distinctive  traditions  of  the  theatre 
come  down  to  us  from  Europe:  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  the  Continental,  the  Greek. 

According  to  Anglo-Saxon  tradition,  the 
theatre  —  being  concerned  with  an  art  —  was 
long  ago  relegated,  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  in 
difference  or  contempt  for  all  the  arts  except 
that  of  pure  literature,  to  the  twilight  realm  of 
Bohemia.  This  has  been  a  lasting  result  of 
the  Puritan  revolution  in  England.  Thus  in 
English-speaking  nations  the  art  of  the  theatre 
has  never  been  officially  recognized  by  society, 

11 


INTRODUCTION 

or  the  state,  as  a  force  of  civilization, 
This  Anglo-Saxon  attitude,  though  modified 
in  recent  years  by  Continental  influences,  still 
obtains;  and  we  in  America  directly  inherit 
the  Anglo-Saxon  tradition  of  the  theatre,  and 
labor  under  its  disadvantages. 

The  most  poignant  of  these  disadvantages  — 
and  the  one  which  has  been  most  disastrous 
in  its  results  both  upon  the  theatre's  own  self- 
respect  and  upon  the  character  of  Anglo-Saxon 
communities  —  has  been  the  necessity,  forced 
upon  it  by  society,  for  the  theatre  to  indulge 
the  public  taste  instead  of  to  guide  it. 

Relegated  to  Bohemianism,  it  has  had  to 
lead  a  shifty  livelihood  by  using  its  humanistic 
powers  for  the  petty  ends  of  commercial  exist 
ence.  Not  even  the  lofty  stature  of  a  Shak- 
spere  has  been  able  to  impress  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  with  the  theatre's  proper  function  in  the 
nation.  So  far  from  perceiving  in  Shak- 
spere  a  convincing  exemplification  of  the 
potential  dignity  of  the  theatre,  Englishmen 
have  for  centuries  conveniently  classified  their 
supreme  dramatist  as  a  "bard,"  consistently 

12 


INTRODUCTION 

extolling  his  poetic  dignity  whilst  they  have 
degraded  the  civic  status  of  his  art. 

According  to  Continental  traditions,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  theatre  —  being  concerned 
with  an  art  —  has  held  a  position  of  strong 
influence  and  high  regard  in  society,  but  of 
less  influence  in  the  state  proper.  This  has 
been  a  lasting  result  of  its  endowment,  pro 
tection,  and  encouragement  by  the  kings, 
courts,  and  principalities  of  Europe.  This, 
too,  has  been  in  accord  with  the  special  genius 
of  the  Continental  civilization,  where  artists 
have  long  been  leaders  in  social  taste  but  not 
in  civic  strategy. 

Thus  the  theatre  has  exerted,  for  centuries 
in  France,  and  for  a  century  or  more  in  Ger 
many,  an  extraordinary  influence  upon  man 
ners  and  philosophy,  dealing  authentically 
with  living  problems,  social  and  intellectual. 
But  in  the  larger  national  issues  of  politics, 
national  industry,  and  statecraft,  it  has  exerted 
comparatively  little  or  no  real  influence. 

According,  however,  to  Greek  tradition 
the  theatre  —  being  concerned  with  an  art  — 

13 


INTRODUCTION 

held  a  position  of  double  vantage,  due  to  the 
special  genius  of  that  people  —  a  people  whose 
artists  were  also  soldiers  and  statesmen.  The 
theatre  in  Athens  exerted  a  guiding  influence 
both  upon  society  and  the  state,  and  thereby 
rose  to  the  full  dignity  of  its  proper  status  and 
function. 

Of  these  traditions,  the  Anglo-Saxon  ex 
presses  a  Bohemian  ideal;  the  Continental,  a 
social  ideal ;  the  Greek,  a  civic  ideal. 

What  bearing,  then,  to-day  have  these  three 
distinctive  traditions  of  the  theatre  upon  the 
destiny  of  the  drama  in  America? 

With  regard  to  all  art,  America  stands  in 
an  unique  position  of  inheritance.  We  are, 
first,  the  direct  heirs  of  Anglo-Saxon  tradition, 
and  this  heritage  is  chiefly  responsible  for  the 
unworthy  status  of  dramatic  art  in  our 
country. 

But  more  than  this,  we  are  increasingly  the 
heirs  of  Continental  tradition,  and  this  heri 
tage  is  chiefly  responsible  for  the  encouraging 
signs  to-day  of  an  important  uplift  in  the  status 
of  dramatic  art  in  America. 

14 


INTRODUCTION 

The  appearance  of  a  book  like  Archer  and 
Barker's  "Scheme  and  Estimates  for  a  Na 
tional  Theatre"  1  is  one  of  these  auspicious 
signs.  In  that  volume  —  a  work  of  impressive 
industry  and  altruism  —  is  epitomized  the 
age-long  experience  of  the  best  Continental 
traditions  in  the  theatre,  and  that  experience 
is  rendered  available,  with  specific  directness, 
to  whomsoever  shall  think  wise  to  carry  on  ' 
those  traditions  in  America. 

Those  traditions  it  is  the  announced  policy 
of  the  New  Theatre,  at  New  York,  to  foster 
in  a  carefully  equipped  playhouse,  partially 
subsidized  —  though  not  yet  fully  endowed  — 
by  private  ownership.  This  theatre,  lately 
dedicated,  will  open  its  first  season  next  au 
tumn,  presenting  modern  and  classic  plays  in 
repertoire.  Greatly  desirable  as  will  be  its 
worthy  success  in  helping  to  counteract  Anglo- 
Saxon  tradition  and  to  confer  stability  and 
dignity  upon  dramatic  art,  the  scope  of  the 
New  Theatre,  being  devoted  to  establishing 
the  methods  and  aims  of  Continental  tradi- 

1  New  York,  Duffield  and  Company,  1908. 
15 


INTRODUCTION 

tion  in  the  metropolis,  necessarily  cannot 
include  certain  radical  objects  and  national 
opportunities  of  the  drama,  as  these  freshly 
unfold  themselves  to  the  thoughtful  observer 
of  our  democracy. 

Some  of  these  radical  objects  are  already 
being  pursued  with  zeal  by  an  enterprise  of 
auspicious  promise  in  New  York.  The  Edu 
cational  Theatre  for  Children  and  Young 
People,  organized  with  Mr.  Samuel  Clemens 
("  Mark  Twain  ")  as  president  of  its  Board  of 
Directors,  is  utilizing  the  elemental  power  of 
dramatic  impulse  in  young  people  for  the 
refinement  of  their  imaginations  and  the  up 
building  of  character.  Dedicated  to  non-com 
mercial  ends,  under  the  immediate  directorship 
of  its  initiator,  Miss  Alice  Minnie  Herts,  the 
Educational  Theatre  is  helping  to  create  the 
first  requisite  of  an  enlightened  theatre  —  an 
enlightened  audience. 

Speaking  of  the  deep-seated  instinct  utilized 
by  this  institution,  President  Eliot  has  lately 
said :  — 

"Here  is  this  tremendous  power  over  chil- 
16 


INTRODUCTION 

dren  and  over  fathers  and  mothers  that  ought  to 
be  utilized  for  their  good.  It  is  true  that  the 
dramatic  instinct  is  very  general,  and  it  can 
be  used  to  put  into  the  hearts  and  minds  of 
children  and  adults  all  sorts  of  noble  and  influ 
ential  thoughts,  and  that  is  the  use  that  ought 
to  be  made  of  it.  ...  So  I  say  that  this  power, 
developed  in  a  very  striking  manner  by  Miss 
Herts  in  the  Educational  Theatre,  is  one  that 
ought  to  be  at  least  in  every  school  in  this 
country,  and  moreover  I  believe  that  it  is 
going  to  be." 

In  New  York,  also,  under  the  idealistic 
direction  of  Mr.  Charles  Sprague  Smith,  the 
People's  Institute  has  ministered  to  the  higher 
uses  of  the  drama  in  practical  work,  which  has 
long  been  well  known. 

In  such  humanistic  efforts  of  organized 
desire,  we  are  (thirdly)  the  heirs  —  not  from 
overseas,  but  from  within  us  —  of  a  new  spirit 
of  democracy;  and  this  heritage,  from  the 
resurrecting  vernal  forces  of  mankind,  is  im 
buing  our  republic  with  the  promise  of  a  new 
Hellenism ;  with  the  promise  of  a  nation  where 
o  17 


INTRODUCTION 

our  artists,  too,  shall  be  soldiers  and  states 
men;  with  a  sense  of  the  correlation  of  all 
vital  human  concerns  in  the  pursuit  of  a  world- 
happiness;  with  the  desire,  in  brief,  of  a 
vaster  perfection. 

By  the  glow  of  this  new  spirit  of  democracy 
our  theatre,  too,  is  being  transfigured.  In  the 
light  of  that  larger  destiny  which  awaits  it 
in  the  nation,  the  chaotic  Bohemian  ideal  of 
Anglo-Saxon  tradition  stands  like  a  relique 
of  the  dark  ages.  Its  meagre  picturesqueness 
has  long  since  ceased  to  be  an  excuse  for  its 
unwholesome  survival.  It  must  not  only  be 
repudiated,  it  must  be  pulled  down,  and  give 
space  to  the  lovelier  grandeur  of  the  Theatre 
of  Democracy. 

Moreover,  the  Continental  tradition  — 
though  it  may  serve  always  a  very  valuable 
purpose,  as  conservator  of  the  best  in  past 
achievement,  and  provide  a  precious  museum 
for  th'e  student  and  the  connoisseur  —  must 
prove,  I  believe,  inadequate  to  fulfil  the 
theatre's  national  function  in  America. 

In  brief,  a  more  inclusive  ideal  must  be 
18 


INTRODUCTION 

sought  for  the  larger  promise  which  America 
and  the  twentieth  century  hold  out  to  the 
theatre,  —  an  ideal  which  shall  establish  the 
art  of  the  dramatist  as  a  permanent  civic 
agency  in  the  structure  of  American  communi 
ties;  an  agency  of  guidance  and  liberation  to 
the  people.  That  ideal  is  found,  I  believe,  — 
with  nearest  approximation,  —  in  the  ideal  of 
the  Greek  tradition  of  the  theatre:  an  ideal 
which  tends  to  reconcile  the  traditions  of  art 
and  democracy. 

The  space  of  this  preface  does  not  permit 
of  enlarging  specifically  upon  the  developments 
of  this  ideal.  Nor,  indeed,  have  I  done  so 
in  this  volume,  save  as  I  have  merely  suggested 
them  in  the  chapters,  "  The  Drama  of  Democ 
racy  "  and  "  The  Dramatist  as  Citizen."  In  a 
second  volume  I  purpose  to  do  so.  But,  in 
passing,  I  may  properly  allude  to  what  appears 
to  be  a  popular  fallacy  concerning  this  topic. 
It  is  frequently  asserted  that  the  ideals  of  art 
and  of  democracy  are  irreconcilable ;  that  art 
differentiates  and  uplifts,  whereas  democracy 
assimilates  and  levels.  To  this  I  venture  the 

19 


INTRODUCTION 

opinion  that,  in  such  an  assertion,  the  ideals  of 
democracy  and  of  commercialism  are  confused. 
Commercialism  always  levels;  true  democracy 
never.  And  true  democracy  is  reasserting 
itself  to-day  as  never  before. 

The  tendencies  of  art  are  idealistic;  but 
so  are  the  tendencies  of  our  renascent  republic. 
In  the  arts  as  in  the  industries  our  people 
are  coming  to  demand  excellence;  that  is,  to 
demand  something  over  and  above  an  average 
quality  known  to  themselves.  They  are  com 
ing  to  demand  the  highest  quality  known  to 
the  producer.  For  giving  them  that  highest 
quality  they  put  their  faith  in  the  producer, 
and  they  will  exact  that  excellence  in  the 
product.  Thus,  in  accordance  with  the 
ideal  of  true  democracy,  the  citizen,  or 
the  artist,  is  required  to  dedicate  to  the  peo 
ple  whatever  he  believes  best  in  himself — 
not  merely  what  the  people  may  suppose 
to  be  best. 

More  and  more,  in  accordance  with  that 
ideal,  our  people  is  coming  to  demand  of  its 
leaders  that  they  shall  not  pay  heed  to  its 

20 


INTRODUCTION 

whimsical  demands,  however  strenuously 
urged,  but  to  the  demands  of  the  nature  of  the 
work  in  hand.  In  short,  they  are  coming  to 
demand  that  their  leaders  shall  be  experts,  who 
shall  behave  as  experts,  for  the  sake  of  the  pub 
lic  who  relies  on  them  in  that  capacity.  In  the 
arts,  these  experts  are  called  Artists;  in  the 
state,  Representatives. 

Now,  in  view  of  this  ideal  of  art  and  democ 
racy,  what  criticism  and  reconstruction  are 
pertinent  to  our  American  drama? 

To  build  foundations,  ground  must  first 
be  cleared,  and  the  greater  the  structure  to 
be  raised,  the  deeper  must  the  bulwarks  be 
fixed  in  the  solid  rock  of  permanence.  If  we 
have  in  mind  the  revolution  of  a  theatrical 
season  or  decade  in  a  particular  city,  our 
reformation  may  be  based,  with  fair  confi 
dence,  in  the  courage,  wisdom,  and  ideality  of 
individual  leaders.  But  if  we  have  in  mind 
the  upbuilding  of  a  dramatic  era,  whose  living 
traditions  shall  stand  for  centuries,  ennobling 
a  nation,  we  must  base  our  designs  in  stuff  more 
perennial;  we  must  base  them  in  reformative 

21 


INTRODUCTION 

conditions, — conditions  which  shall  perennially 
tend  to  produce  such  individual  leaders. 

This  book  is  concerned  with  conditions  — 
not  with  persons ;  with  questions  which  con 
cern  right  and  wrong  conditions  of  dramatic 
art,  irrespective  of  particular  individuals. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  every  art  exists 
by  reason  of  the  work  of  artists ;  but  it  should 
also  go  without  saying  that  artists,  like  other 
phenomena,  exist  by  reason  of  conditions  con 
ducive  to  their  being. 

The  wise  harvester  does  not  sow  in  stubble : 
first,  he  removes  the  stubble.  In  calculating 
his  wheat  crop,  he  is  not  satisfied  with  reflect 
ing  that  some  sporadic  wheat  ears  will  prob 
ably  flourish  in  spite  of  the  stubble.  On  the 
contrary,  he  cultivates  his  ground  solely  for 
the  crop  he  desires  to  harvest.  In  farming, 
at  least,  that  procedure  is  considered  common 
sense.  In  dramatic  art  — 

The  time  would  seem  to  have  arrived  to  ask 
ourselves,  as  citizens:  What  theatrical  crop 
is  most  desirable  to  harvest  for  the  American 
people  ?  And  how  shall  it  be  cultivated  ? 

22 


INTRODUCTION 

The  writer  does  not  profess  to  answer  these 
questions  dogmatically.  He  believes,  however, 
that  it  is  of  unimagined  consequence  that  the 
leaders  of  our  people  should  seek  adequate 
answers  for  themselves. 

The  present  book  seeks  to  help  clear  the  ground 
for  the  upbuilding  —  not  in  one  city  only  but  in 
all  our  greater  American  communities — of  a  per 
manently  endowed  theatrical  institution,  dedi 
cated  solely  to  dramatic  art  as  a  civic  agency  in 
the  democracy  :  a  civic  theatre  for  the  people. 

Another  volume,  which  the  author  proposes 
to  publish  later,  will  seek  to  outline  the  struc 
tural  features,  the  inward  and  outward  safe- 
guardings,  the  proper  balance  of  the  con 
trolling  forces,  the  social  ramifications  and 
influences  of  such  an  institution,  together  with 
the  practical  steps  necessary  for  its  establish 
ment.  The  attributes  of  this  imagined  theatre 
will  be  adapted  to  the  ideals  suggested  in  the 
essay  "The  Drama  of  Democracy,"  and  in 
several  fundamental  respects  will  differ  from 
ideals  of  the  theatre  as  now  founded  either 
in  Anglo-Saxon  or  in  Continental  tradition. 

23 


INTRODUCTION 

To  one  devoted  to  the  interests  both  of  our 
drama  and  of  our  country,  it  becomes  increas 
ingly  clear  that  if  the  interests  of  both  are  to 
be  reconciled,  our  theatrical  leaders  may  no 
longer  ignore  their  responsibilities  as  citizens; 
our  leading  citizens  may  no  longer  ignore  the 
potentialities  of  the  theatre  as  a  civic  institution. 

The  contents  of  this  volume  have  been  gath 
ered  together  because  of  the  gratifying  recep 
tion  already  accorded  to  those  portions  which 
I  have  delivered  as  addresses  before  several 
of  our  universities.  As  a  result  of  that  pleas 
ant  privilege,  I  discovered — what,  I  believe,  is 
not  yet  realized  by  the  public,  nor  perhaps  by 
the  universities  themselves  —  that  those  high 
est  schools  of  our  country  are  already  the  seats 
of  a  modest  but  vital  dramatic  renascence, 
critical  and  creative. 

In  at  least  four  of  our  largest  universities, 
I  met  with  groups  of  young  men,  banded  to 
gether  by  a  common  ardor  and  a  special 
capacity  for  the  purpose  of  studying  and  mas 
tering  the  technique  of  plays.  The  spirit  which 
imbued  these  young  men  appeared  not  to  be 

24 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF  NTRODUCTION 


that  of  archaic  research  or  dilettantism,  of 
school  regime  or  social  fad.  On  the  con 
trary,  they  exhibited  that  fine  fellowship  of 
purpose  and  determination  of  pursuit,  which 
one  associates  with  the  studios  of  young 
sculptors  and  painters  —  art  students,  happy 
in  their  dead  earnestness.  Their  aims  were 
specific,  contemporaneous,  and  prophetic  of  a 
new  order.  It  is  a  fresh  phenomenon  and  a 
heartening  one.  It  is  significant  also  that, 
in  at  least  two  cases,  these  university  men  have 
grouped  themselves  under  a  critical  master  of 
large  special  knowledge  and  enthusiasm.  Pro 
fessor  George  Pierce  Baker,  of  Harvard,  and 
Professor  William  Lyon  Phelps,  of  Yale,  are 
impressing  with  their  trained  insight  genera 
tions  which  promise  soon  to  leaven  the  Ameri 
can  public  with  a  new  reverence  for  the  drama, 
based  upon  criteria  more  clear,  accomplish 
ments  more  excellent  than  in  the  past. 

Now,  in  the  light  of  the  high  aims  and  aspi 
rations  of  these  young  men,  —  and  of  other 
American  young  men  and  women  in  all  paths 
of  life,  who  look  gladly  to  the  drama  as  their 

25 


INTRODUCTION 

goal  of  expression,  —  where  shall  these  seek  op 
portunity  for  embodying  their  aspirations  effi 
ciently  ?  By  what  standards  of  the  theatre  shall 
they  set  their  actual  work,  not  simply  for  indi 
vidual  livelihood  but  for  public  service  ?  How 
shall  they  focus  their  efforts  and  their  ideals  so 
as  to  bring  their  best  gifts  to  realization  and, 
by  patient  collaboration  toward  a  common  aim, 
give  visible  and  splendid  sign  of  the  renascence 
which  already  lives  and  throbs  to  be  born  ? 

Are  these  questions  irrelevant,  unneedful? 
I  believe  not. 

Countless  numbers  of  the  intelligent  and 
the  aspiring  have  brought  their  birthright  to 
the  playhouse,  and  there  have  sold  it  for  pot 
tage,  or,  refusing  to  do  that,  have  turned 
reluctantly  away  and  devoted  their  fine  powers 
to  other  vocations. 

Why  has  this  been?  What  is  wrong  with 
the  playhouse,  or  with  the  aims  of  these  aspi 
rants,  that  seemingly  they  are  so  maladjusted  ? 

Whatever  the  answer,  —  and  we  shall  try  to 
seek  the  answer,  —  here  undeniably  is  waste; 
here  undeniably  is  an  abortion  of  noble  im- 

26 


INTRODUCTION 

pulses,  talents,  faculties,  which  —  if  we  can 
find  the  remedy  —  may  yet  be  dedicated  to  the 
art  which  boasts  its  Sophocles,  and  to  the  re 
public  which  aspires  to  excel  in  civilization. 

In  this  volume,  since  it  consists  chiefly  of  ad 
dresses  made  at  various  places  and  times,  there 
is  necessarily  a  certain  amount  of  repetition. 
But  if  the  ideas  repeated  are  sound,  reiteration 
will  not  impair  their  worth;  if  they  are  un 
sound,  reiteration  will  serve  the  useful  purpose 
of  emphasizing  their  defects,  thus  helping  the 
cause  of  truth,  which  is  their  only  object. 

Because  also  of  the  special  emphasis  of  this 
book,  it  is  possible  that  some  of  my  statements 
may  be  construed  as  expressions  of  pessimism. 
If  so,  that  would  be  wrongly  to  construe  my 
real  convictions.  In  this  volume,  I  may  re 
peat,  I  attempt  only  to  deal  suggestively  with 
a  few  important  sides  of  a  many-sided  subject. 
Necessarily  there  is  much  hiatus  and  omission. 
But  if  I  have  sought  to  reveal  inherent  defects 
in  existing  theatrical  conditions,  I  am  none  the 
less  gladly  aware  of  the  many  auspicious 
signs  prophetic  of  a  finer  order  of  things. 

27 


INTRODUCTION 

Never  before  in  the  history  of  the  American 
theatre  has  the  future  of  our  native  drama  been 
so  splendid  and  secure  in  promise  as  to-day. 
In  this  undoubted  fact  we  may  well  take  joy  and 
courage;  yet  we  need  not  be  blind  to  the 
true  causes  of  the  fact.  The  true  causes  for 
the  unique  promise  and  the  encouraging  achieve 
ment  of  our  drama  to-day  arise  not  from  any 
conducive  qualifications  of  the  existing  theatri 
cal  system  as  a  private  speculative  business, 
but  from  that  great  reawakening  of  our  national 
consciousness  which  everywhere  to-day  is  in 
creasingly  alive  to  deeper  significances  in  our 
life  and  institutions. 

In  brief,  our  national  life  now  claims  the 
theatre  to  express  itself,  and  to  that  end  the 
theatre,  sooner  or  later,  must  be  overhauled 
and  reconstructed  to  meet  the  larger  needs  of 
national  life. 

In  America  itself  lies  the  assured  renascence 
of  American  drama. 

PERCY  MACKAYE. 

CORNISH,  NEW  HAMPSHIRE, 
February,  1909. 

28 


SOME   QUESTIONS  BEFORE 
THE   CURTAIN 


CITIZENS  OP  THE  BOXES,  THE  GALLERIES,  AND  THE 
STALLS : — 

As  one  of  many  workers  behind  the  curtain,  I  submit  to 
you  these  questions  before  it. 

It  is  of  small  importance  that  you  answer  them  as  I  would ; 
it  is  of  great  importance  that  you  consider  them  and  answer 
them  as  you  would. 

When  all  of  the  playgoers  of  America  shall  have  put 
similar  questions  to  themselves  and  answered  them,  then  the 
playhouse  and  the  play  in  our  country  will  possess  —  what 
now  they  lack  —  the  indispensable  basis  for  their  wholesome 
prosperity:  enlightened  public  opinion. 


SOME  QUESTIONS  BEFORE 
THE   CURTAIN 

WHAT  is  a  play  ? 
What  is  a  good  play? 

Is  it  (to  quote  an  eminent  theatrical  author 
ity)  "a  play  that  succeeds:  that's  all"? 

What  is  a  bad  play  ? 

Is  it  (to  quote  the  same  authority)  "a  play 
that  fails:  that's  all"? 

In  view  of  the  above  definitions,  is  "  Hamlet" 
—  being  a  play  which  has  both  succeeded  and 
failed  —  a  good  play  or  a  bad  play  ? 

If  either,  why  ? 

Is  a  play  a  play  before  its  production? 

What  is  theatrical  production?  its  proper 
relation  toward  the  play  ?  its  proper  function 
toward  the  public  ? 

How  far  does  the  public  confuse  the  creative 
work  of  the  dramatist  with  the  interpretative 
work  of  the  actor  ? 

31 


QUESTIONS    BEFORE    THE    CURTAIN 

How  far  is  this  confusion  necessary  ?  useful  ? 

Is  it  true  that  plays  are  usually  written  as 
vehicles  for  particular  actors? 

If  so,  what  effect  is  that  fact  likely  to  have 
upon  the  plays  themselves,  as  works  of  drama 
turgy?  upon  the  theatrical  situation?  its  fu 
ture? 

What  is  the  rational  adjustment  of  actor, 
dramatist,  stage-director,  to  theatrical  produc 
tion? 

If  theatrical  production  be  an  art  of  many 
delicate  interrelations,  ought  it  to  be  ordered 
and  harmonized  by  a  single  competent  director  ? 

Is  it  true  that  no  concerted  action  has  ever 
been  taken  in  this  country  to  establish  such 
securely  permanent  theatrical  conditions  as 
shall  educate  and  supply  expert  theatrical 
directors  ? 

Does  the  lack  of  demand  for  such  supply 
impugn  the  present  system,  which  creates 
theatrical  demand? 

Does  the  present  system  create  theatrical 
demand  ? 

32 


QUESTIONS    BEFORE    THE    CURTAIN 

Or  does  the  public? 
What  is  public  demand? 

Our  theatres  in  America  are  attended  nightly 
by  tens  of  millions  of  citizens :  What  steps  have 
been  taken  to  investigate  whether  the  theatres 
are  instituted  upon  a  basis  which  tends  to  im 
prove,  and  not  to  deteriorate,  the  citizenship  of 
such  vast  numbers  in  qualities  of  taste,  moral 
ity,  and  mentality? 

Our  theatres  in  America  are  the  recipients 
annually  of  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  from 
the  people:  What  steps  have  been  taken  to 
investigate  whether  a  much  smaller  contribu 
tion  on  the  part  of  the  people,  combined  with 
a  safeguarded  basis  of  public  or  private  endow 
ment,  might  not  achieve  results  of  greater  pub 
lic  service  than  the  theatre  is  now  able  to  render  ? 

What  civic  societies  concern  themselves  with 
abuses  of  the  theatre's  proper  function  in  the 
community  ? 

What  churches  ? 

What  social  clubs  ? 

What  universities  ? 

D  33 


QUESTIONS  BEFORE  THE  CURTAIN 

Does  the  public  care  whether  a  play  makes 
money  ? 

Is  public  taste  a  matter  of  public  concern? 

Considering  once  or  twice  in  a  year  to  be 
seldom,  what  proportion  of  our  municipal 
communities  seldom  goes  to  the  theatre? 

Of  what  social  status  and  degree  of  education 
is  such  proportion? 

Since  theatrical  productions  are  reported 
and  interpreted  to  the  public  by  dramatic 
critics,  what  is  the  usual  nature  of  education 
in  dramatic  criticism? 

Who  appoints  dramatic  critics? 

When  appointed,  what  standard  of  excel 
lence  must  they  maintain  in  order  to  practise 
their  profession? 

Can  they  be  guilty  of  malpractice  without 
expulsion  ? 

Can  they,  on  the  other  hand,  be  expelled 
for  practising  their  vocation  justly? 

Is  it  always  permitted  to  them  to  make  im 
partial  and  unbiassed  judgments  ? 

Or  are  they,  in  any  cases,  constrained  to 
34 


QUESTIONS  BEFORE  THE  CURTAIN 

follow  the  particular  policies  of  their  news 
papers  with  regard  to  theatrical  advertisements, 
if  they  would  hold  their  positions  ? 

Through  what  channels  has  the  public  any 
means  of  being  informed  on  these  matters? 

Are  such  channels   competent?  unbiassed? 

Is  it  true  that  the  first  night  of  a  production 
is  usually  the  least  representative  of  the  play 
and  the  acting? 

If  so,  why  are  first-night  performances  usu 
ally  the  only  performances  which  are  criticised? 

Under  present  conditions,  in  what  space  of 
time,  and  under  what  circumstances, — con 
ducive  or  not  to  mature  judgment,  —  must 
dramatic  criticisms  be  written? 

Are  these  conditions  acceptable  to  critics? 
to  the  public  ? 

To  whom  are  they  acceptable? 

What  are  the  elementary  criteria  of  dramatic 
criticism  ? 

What  are  the  statistics  of  the  public's  weekly 
attendance  of  the  churches  ?  of  the  theatres  ? 
Have  these  statistics  any  bearing  upon  the 
35 


QUESTIONS  BEFORE  THE  CURTAIN 

relative  functions  of  church  and  theatre  in  the 
community  ? 

If  you  have  attended  the  rehearsals  and 
performances  given  at  the  Educational  The 
atre  for  Children  and  Young  People,  New 
York,  and  also  attended  the  rehearsals  and 
performances  of  any  professional  theatre  in 
the  regular  business  on  Broadway,  or  else 
where,  have  you  ever  made  a  mental  compari 
son  of  the  underlying  motives  of  the  two? 

In  power  to  develop  the  capacity  and  joy 
of  expression,  which  of  the  two  is  the  better 
qualified?  Why? 

As  a  humanizing  force  in  civilization,  which 
is  the  more  potent  ?  Why  ? 

Theatrical  production  arose  from  church 
ritual:  Why  did  it  diverge? 

Do  the  historic  reasons  for  its  divergence  still 
hold  good? 

What  kinship,  if  any,  has  the  dramatic 
instinct  with  the  religious? 

Considering  the  very  wide  public  advertise 
ment  of  theatrical  personalities,  what  accounts 

36 


QUESTIONS    BEFORE    THE    CURTAIN 

for  the  very  limited  public  knowledge  of  the 
art  of  the  theatre? 
What  are  the  wares  of  the  theatrical  business  ? 

What  local  societies  have  been  formed  in 
our  towns  and  cities  for  the  purposes  of  in 
vestigation,  study,  statistics,  public  suggestion, 
regarding  the  conditions  of  acting,  play- 
writing,  theatrical  management,  as  these  are 
related  to  the  public  welfare? 

Hundreds  of  social  clubs  in  America  devote 
a  large  part  of  their  activities  to  considering  the 
aesthetics  of  the  drama  in  Europe :  How  many 
devote  any  attention  to  considering  the  specific 
obstacles  to  the  aesthetics  of  the  drama  in 
America  ? 

Modern  actors  are  called  upon  to  interpret 
characters  drawn  by  the  dramatist  from  all 
classes  of  modern  society:  What  opportuni 
ties  are  provided  to  actors  by  the  hours  and 
necessities  of  their  profession  wherein  to  study 
such  characters  from  real  life  ? 

If  no  such  opportunity  is  provided  to  actors 
by  their  profession,  how  does  this  fact  affect 
the  competent  interpretation  of  plays  ? 

37 


QUESTIONS  BEFORE  THE  CURTAIN 

How  does  it  affect  the  scope  of  the  drama 
tist's  character-drawing  ? 

Is  it  true  that  actors  are  provided,  by  the 
practice  of  their  profession,  with  little  or  no 
opportunity  for  fundamental  training  in  the 
traditions  of  their  art?  in  the  mastery  of 
diction?  of  spoken  verse?  of  gesture?  with 
opportunity  for  the  comparison  of  their  own 
work  with  that  of  living  masters  in  their  art? 

If  so,  how  does  this  lack  of  efficient  oppor 
tunity  affect  the  practical  scope  of  the  arts  of 
actor  and  dramatist  ? 

How  may  such  efficient  opportunity  be 
provided  ? 

Why  should  lovers  of  art  blame  theatrical 
managers  for  adopting  consistent  methods  to 
improve  their  business  ? 

Do  lovers  of  art  condemn  business  men  in 
Wall  Street  for  being  equally  consistent  in 
their  methods  ? 

If  lovers  of  art  do  not  like  the  results  of  such 
methods,  why  do  they  not  take  steps  to  make 
the  pursuit  of  better  methods  logical? 

38 


QUESTIONS    BEFORE    THE    CURTAIN 

It  is  easy  to  demand  self-sacrifice  and  finan 
cial  risk  from  a  business  man :  but  is  it  rea 
sonable  ? 

What  is  meant  by  "the  higher  drama"? 

To  deserve  that  classification,  must  a  play 
possess  literary  appeal?  convey  a  moral? 
an  intellectual  message? 

To  what  extent  have  the  contemporary 
dramatists  of  Europe  influenced  American 
dramaturgy? 

To  what  extent  is  this  influence  salutary? 
To  what  extent  harmful? 

Are  Endowment  and  Subsidy  by  Subscrip 
tion  the  same  in  principle  ? 

If  they  are  utterly  different  in  principle, 
why  are  theatrical  enterprises,  supported  by 
subscription,  frequently  referred  to  by  authori 
ties  as  "endowed  theatres"? 

Does  not  such  reference  obscure  the  real 
issue  of  endowment  to  the  public  mind? 

What  book  has  ever  narrated  the  complete 
and  true  history  of  a  successful  play  before  and 
after  its  first  performance  ? 

39 


QUESTIONS    BEFORE    THE    CURTAIN 

How  do  exceedingly  long  runs  of  plays  affect 
the  actor  ?  the  dramatist  ?  the  public  taste  ? 

What  eminent  American  educator  has  called 
national  attention  to  the  cause  of  dramatic 
art  in  this  country  ? 

How  many  chairs  of  the  drama  have  been 
founded  in  our  universities  ? 

How  much  attention  is  given  in  the  courses 
of  our  universities  to  Shakspere  in  the  sixteenth 
century  ?  How  much  to  his  art  in  the  twentieth  ? 

In  America,  committees  for  the  critical 
selection  and  exhibition  of  works  in  sculpture 
are  composed  of  expert  sculptors,  such  as 
Saint-Gaudens,  Barnard,  French,  MacMon- 
nies:  How  are  committees  for  the  critical 
selection  and  exhibition  of  plays  composed? 

In  America,  committees  for  the  critical  selec 
tion  and  exhibition  of  works  in  painting  are 
composed  of  expert  painters,  such  as  John 
Alexander,  Edwin  Blashfield,  Kenyon  Cox, 
Abbott  Thayer :  How  are  committees  for  the 
critical  selection  and  exhibition  of  plays  com 
posed  ? 

40 


THE  PLAYHOUSE  AND  THE  PLAY 


THE  PLAYHOUSE  AND  THE  PLAY 

IT  is  a  prevalent  tendency  in  the  discussion 
of  plays  to  place  the  drama  as  an  art  upon 
practically  the  same  footing  of  artistic  inde 
pendence  as  the  novel,  essay,  lyric,  and  other 
forms  of  literature.  In  the  universities,  schol 
arly  minds  frequently  discuss  the  works  of 
Shakspere  with  little  or  no  reference  to  the 
theatrical  conditions  of  his  time.  Literary 
clubs,  critical  reviews,  similarly  discuss  the 
works  of  modern  dramatists,  with  little  or  no 
foreknowledge  of  inexorable  conditions  which 
have  determined  the  scope  and  form  of  those 
works.  A  modern  poet,  himself  a  dramatist 
of  distinction,  Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats,  writes  in 
the  Preface  of  his  volume  of  plays,  lately 
published,  "The  dramatist  is  as  free  as  the 
painter  of  good  pictures  and  the  writer  of 
good  books."  And  so,  in  general,  the  liter 
ary  press  regards  the  writer  of  plays,  estimat 
ing  his  work  by  standards  similar  to  those  by 

43 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

which  the  worth  of  a  novel,  an  essay,  or  a 
poem  is  estimated. 

These  judgments  usually  ignore  a  funda 
mental  standard  of  dramatic  criticism:  Jljgv 
ignore  the  primary  conditions  which  deter 
mine  the  very  nature  of  a  play;  that  is,  they 
ignore  the  limiting  nature  of  the  playhouse. 
I  propose,  therefore,  to  discuss  the  nature  of 
the  playhouse  as  a  conditioning  influence  upon 
the  nature  of  the  drama  itself. 

Except,  however,  for  purposes  of  compari 
son,  I  shall  confine  our  discussion  to  theat 
rical  conditions  in  America  to-day.  I  shall 
seek  to  make  an  analysis  of  those  theatrical 
conditions  with  a  view  to  determining  the  chief 
underlying  forces,  psychological  and  social, 
which  cause  the  conditions.  With  this  aim, 
I  shall  view  the  theatrical  field  in  its  widest 
aspect,  and  shall  try  to  deal  impersonally  with 
certain  large  general  considerations.  In  doing 
so,  many  statements  and  deductions  which  I 
shall  make  will  probably  be  liable  to  specific  ex 
ception.  For  the  very  reason  that  I  shall  deal 
with  the  working  of  general  causes,  certain 

44 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

individual  exceptions  may  —  by  the  livelier 
appeal  of  their  personal  equation  —  appear 
to  confute  my  reasoning.  Such  personal  ex 
ceptions,  however,  I  shall  not  —  in  the  scope 
of  this  paper  —  have  time  to  specify.  I  ask 
leave,  therefore,  to  emphasize  this  necessary 
limitation  at  the  outset.  In  order  not  to  ob 
scure  the  nature  of  a  few  main  issues  of  vital 
importance  to  our  subject,  I  shall  limit  my 
self  to  an  impersonal  discussion  of  the  play 
house  and  the  play. 

As  we  find  it,  the  nature  of  the  playhouse  is 
twofold.  It  is  — 

A  house  in  which  to  produce  plays; 

A  house  in  which  to  sell  the  product. 

Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  the  complex  in 
strument  of  a  special  art;  and  on  the  other,  it 
is  the  saleshouse  of  a  special  business. 

Now,  as  a  limiting  influence  upon  the  play, 
this  twofold  nature  of  the  playhouse  is  active 
in  twofold  measure :  — 

First,  as  the  complex  instrument  of  theatric 
art,  it  determines  the  form,  or  technique,  of 
the  play ; 

45 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

Secondly,  as  the  saleshouse  of  histrionic  and 
dramatic  wares,  it  affects  the  content  or  scope 
of  the  play  —  the  message  of  the  dramatist 
himself,  as  thinker  and  artist. 

First,  then,  we  will  consider  how,  as  the  in 
strument  for  the  production  of  plays,  the  play 
house  determines  the  technique  of  the  play; 
secondly,  how,  as  the  house  in  which  theatrical 
productions  are  for  sale,  the  playhouse  deter 
mines  the  scope  of  the  dramatist's  expression. 

The  principal  elements  of  theatrical  pro 
duction  are  familiar  to  every  one.  They  are 
the  play,  actors,  stage,  scenery,  light  effects, 
orchestral  music,  etc.  Now,  as  one  among 
these,  the  play  may  dominate  the  other  ele 
ments  or  it  may  be  subordinated  to  the  others. 
Thus  the  relative  emphasis  of  these  elements 
is  the  basis  for  the  organization  of  theatrical 
productions  under  their  familiar  special  classes : 
"Legitimate  Drama,"  Vaudeville,  Grand 
Opera,  Musical  Comedy,  etc. 

If  it  be  granted,  however,  that  dramatic 
art  is  a  form  of  expression  fitted  and  ordained 
to  convey  an  intellectual  message,  the  ideal 

46 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

proportion  of  these  elements  in  theatrical 
production  will  be  that  in  which  the  Play  — 
the  element  of  the  creative  Idea — is  domi 
nant. 

Yet,  granting  this,  it  is  nevertheless  clear  that 
the  other  elements  thus  subordinated  will 
still  exert  a  limiting  influence  upon  the  form 
or  technique  of  the  play.  So,  for  example, 
the  out-door  stage,  the  facial  mask,  the  chorus, 
the  permanent  scene,  were  elements  of  ancient 
production  which  conditioned  the  dramatic 
technique  of  the  Greeks;  so,  also,  the  bare, 
three-sided  platform,  the  up-stage  exit,  the 
curtainless  climax  of  acts,  the  "plastic" 
groupings  of  the  actors,  conditioned  the  crafts 
manship  of  Shakspere.  And  so  the  pic 
ture-scenes  of  our  modern  stage,  its  curtain, 
its  footlights,  its  wings  and  scenery,  its  mod 
ern  time-limit  of  performance,  based  on  the 
exigencies  of  our  evening  hours,  and  the  anxie 
ties  of  "commuters";  its  time-divisions  into 
acts,  adjusted  psychologically  to  the  concen- 
trative  power  of  our  audiences:  these  things, 
and  more,  determine  our  modern  dramaturgy. 

47 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

The  playhouse,  in  brief,  is  a  complex  and 
delicate  instrument,  comparable,  one  might 
say,  to  a  gigantic  organ.  The  compositions 
which  are  written  for  it  must,  therefore,  be 
practically  adapted  to  its  special  qualities 
and  limitations  as  an  instrument  —  to  the 
scope  of  its  various  stops.  Thus,  as  all 
musical  compositions  are  not  necessarily  organ 
scores,  all  dialogues  are  not  necessarily  plays. 
The  playhouse,  not  less  than  the  organ,  pre 
determines  its  special  compositions. 

All  this  is  perhaps  obvious  and  trite,  yet  it 
is  so  frequently  ignored  by  current  criticism 
and  discussion  of  plays,  that  it  has  seemed 
worthy  of  preliminary  mention  in  order  to 
clarify  our  subject.  We  need  not,  however, 
dwell  upon  it  longer. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  limiting  influence 
of  theatrical  production  upon  dramatic  tech 
nique,  —  for  the  limiting  influence  of  the  play 
house,  in  its  first  aspect  as  a  complex  instru 
ment  of  art,  upon  the  play. 

We  come  now  to  a  far  more  important 
limiting  influence  upon  our  drama,  and  one 

48 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

far  less  understood   as  being  such;    namely, 
the  influence  of  the  playhouse  in  its  second 

aspect  —  the  limiting  influence  of  theatrical 

^          ,  _ — — — - 

business  upon  the  scope  and  content  of  plays. 

In  its  second  aspect,  the  playhouse  is,  as 
we  have  said,  a  house  of  private  business, 
for  the  sale  of  histrionic  and  dramatic  com 
modities.  The  elements  of  theatrical  pro 
duction,  then,  are  not  merely  the  elements 
of  an  art  for  the  people  —  they  are  also  the  ^.g^ 
manager's  wares.  Among  these  elements,  it 
is  immaterial  to  him  as  a  business  man  which 
element  shall  dominate  as  long  as  it  makes 
him  money.  In  his  capacity  as  merchant,  he 
prefers  only  that  which  will  sell  the  highest, 
or  to  the  greatest  number,  or  both.  If  "The 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor"  draws  better  then 
"Florodora,"  he  prefers  "The  Merry  Wives"; 
and  vice  versa.  He  is  concerned  simply  with 
commercial  supply  and  demand. 

What,    then,    in_general,    does   the   public   v^ 
demand    from    a   theatrical    production?     In 
one  word,  diversion, — diversion  by  some  kind 
of    stimulation.     Roughly    speaking,    human 
*  49 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

nature  is  susceptible  of  three  kinds  of  stimu 
lation  —  intellectual,  aesthetic,  emotional. 

The  appeal  of  the  first  is  to  the  intellect 
alone;  of  the  second,  to  the  intellect  and  the 
senses  combined;  of  the  third,  to  the  senses 
alone.  Now  the  drama  is  an  art  whose 
function  is  to  convey  an  intellectual  appeal  by 
means  of  an  appeal  to  the  senses.  Which  of 
these  three  kinds  of  stimulation,  then,  will 
ideally  be  best  adapted  for  the  drama  to 
excite?  Clearly  not  the  first,  which  appeals 
to  the  intellect  alone;  nor  the  third,  which 
appeals  to  the  senses  alone;  but  the  second, 
which  appeals  to  both  combined.  ^Esthetic 
stimulation,  then,  is  ideally  adapted  for  the 
drama  to  excite.  It  is,  therefore,  the  rational 
aim  of  dramatic  art.  But  is  it  adapted  to  the 
greatest  public  demand  ? 

Of  these  three  kinds  of  stimulation,  which 
kind  is  most  strongly,  permanently,  uni 
versally  desired? 

Psychology  predicts,  and  experience  proves, 
that  of  these  three  the  kind  which  most  strongly, 
most  permanently,  most  universally  is  desired, 

50 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

is  the  third  —  emotional  stimulation ;  and  the 
kind  which  is  least  strongly,  least  permanently, 
least  universally  desired,  is  the  first  —  intel 
lectual  stimulation. 

The  reasonable  policy  of  the  manager, 
therefore,  is  clear.  As  a  sound  business  man, 
it  becomes  his  policy  to  provide  the  least 
possible  amount  of  the  first  kind  of  stimu 
lation,  and  the  greatest  possible  amount  of 
the  third  kind.  The  second  kind, —  aesthetic 
stimulation,  —  he  may  reasonably  ignore  alto 
gether,  as  a  superfluous  combination.  Thus 
it  becomes  the  rational  aim  of  theatrical  busi 
ness  to  ignore  the  rational  aim  of  dramatic  art. 
Moreover,  if  he  is  to  be  a  wise  and  enter 
prising  business  man,  the  manager  will,  by  ju 
dicious  advertisement  and  the  organization  of 
his  business,  endeavor  to  increase  and  deepen 
the  demand  for  emotional  stimulation,  and  to 
lessen  and  nullify  the  demand  for  intellectual 
stimulation. 

Thjis  modern  theatrical  business  is  based 
broadly  and  firmly  in  human  psychology  on 
the  law  of  increasing  emotional  and  decreasing 

51 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

intellectual  demand,  a  law  which  is  accelerated 
by  the  night- weariness  of  our  strenuous  mod 
ern  days.  This  law JL shall  name  the  Law  of 
Dramatic  Deterioration.1 

The  general  course  and  effects  of  this  law, 
or  tendency,  though  evident  in  any  given 
theatrical  season,  are  better  traceable  over  a 
space  of  years,  and  by  comparison  with  con 
ditions  in  other  lands.  Originally,  in  America, 
when  actors  themselves  were  frequently 
both  business  men  and  artists,  taking  the 
financial  risk,  but  revelling  in  the  aesthetics 
of  "the  profession,"  the  motive  of  theatrical 
production  was  often  based  more  in  the  art 
of  acting  than  in  the  box  office.  Acting, 
however,  not  dramaturgy,  was  then  the  chief 
goal  of  artistic  aspiration  in  the  theatre.2  The 
Law  of  Dramatic  Deterioration,  then,  as  af 
fecting  the  actor,  was  not  infrequently  counter 
acted  by  the  personal  sacrifice  of  actors  them 
selves,  and  limited  in  scope  by  the  scale  of 
theatrical  business.  And  to-day,  in  France 
and  Germany,  where  the  dramatist  and  the 
1  See  Comment  on  page  199.  2  See  page  202. 

52 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

trained  director  are  major  influences  in  the 
theatre,  the  chief  emphasis  of  production  is 
not  upon  gross  receipts,  but  upon  dramatic 
art.  The  Law  of  Deterioration  there  is  per 
manently  counteracted  by  the  rational  prin 
ciples  of  endowment.  To-day  in  America, 
however,  the  case  is  different ;  now  the  Law 
of  Dramatic  Deterioration  is  able  to  oper 
ate  consistently,  and  practically  unimpeded. 
Neither  artistic  self-sacrifice,  nor  endowment, 
prevents  the  vast  scale  of  its  working.1  The 
reasons  for  this  are  simple.  The  same  causes 
which  during  the  last  twro  decades  have  created 
the  harmonious  organization  of  the  great  in 
dustries  and  utilities  of  our  nation  for  their 
own  commercial  ends,  have  operated  also  — 
and  are  still  operating  —  to  organize  the 
theatre  as  a  business  upon  an  immense  scale 
of  efficiency  and  inward  harmoniousness  for 
its  own  ends.  What  are  those  ends?  They 
are  not  many;  they  are  one.  The  single  end 

1  Other  great  forces,  however,  do  powerfully  combat  and 
check  this  law.  These  forces  are  briefly  discussed  in  the 
Comment  on  page  199. 

53 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

of  theatrical  enterprise  is  to  make  money.  Why 
should  it  not  be  ?  Such  is  the  simple  end  of  all 
other  private  business  enterprise.  If  the  play 
house  is  legitimately  a  house  of  business,  to 
make  an  exception  of  theatrical  enterprise  is 
therefore  absurd.  It  is  the  clear  and  consistent 
recognition  of  this  sound  analogy  which  has 
reorganized  and  enlarged  our  theatrical  busi-  , 
ness,  and  established  it  to-day  upon  the  strong 
rock  of  the  Law  of  Dramatic  Deterioration. 
The  aim  of  theatrical  business  has  not  always 
been  clearly  perceived  by  artists,  who  are 
managers.  They  have  sought  to  reconcile 
the  aim  of  art  with  the  aim  of  money-making : 
a  policy  resulting  inevitably  in  frequent  self- 
sacrifice  and  ultimate  failure.  Occasionally, 
to  be  sure,  such  managers  have  been  success 
ful;  they  adopt  methods  which  seek  at  once 
to  produce  the  best  art  possible  and  to  make 
the  most  money  possible.  But  such  methods 
cannot  hope  permanently  to  succeed ;  for  they 
are  based  on  a  divided  energy,  and  a  divided 
law.1  The  manager  who  adopts  methods  which 

1  See  Comment  on  page  199. 
54 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

singly  and  consistently  develop  the  widest  field 
that  exists  in  human  psychology  will  inevitably 
outstrip  all  less  consistent  competitors.  To-day, 
then,  with  the  increasing  adoption  of  those 
logical  methods  by  commercial  experts,  minds 
frankly  and  sincerely  divorced  from  all  inter 
est  in  dramatic  art  as  such,  the  theatre  in 
America  is  attaining  unprecedented  success 
and  power,  and  holds  forth  the  promise  of 
fortunes  undreamed  of  in  the  past. 

When,  therefore,  the  commercial  manager 
points  to  this  impressive  vindication  of  his 
methods  in  achieving  success,  we  can  only 
agree  with  him  that  his  methods  are  admirably 
effectual,  and  his  aims  surpassingly  achieved. 
But  we  are  concerned  with  a  different  matter ; 
we  are  concerned  with  the  methods  and  aims 
of  dramatic  art.  To  our  present  discussion, 
"the  play's  the  thing."  How  does  all  that 
we  have  been  discussing  affect  the  play  — 
the  work  of  the  dramatist? 

"The  dramatist,"  says  Mr.  Yeats,  "is  as 
free  as  the  painter  of  good  pictures  and  the 
writer  of  good  books." 

55 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

Is  he  ?  Is  the  dramatist  to-day,  who  writes 
good  plays  and  would  have  his  plays  produced, 
as  free  as  the  painter  of  good  pictures,  who 
would  have  his  paintings  exhibited,  and  the 
writer  of  good  books,  who  would  have  his 
works  published? 

We  have  seen  before  that  the  dramatist 
must,  in  his  art,  meet  the  limiting  demands  of 
the  stage  itself  in  order  to  write  a  truly  practi 
cal  play;  that  is,  a  play  technically  fit  for 
production.  By  so  doing,  however,  he  per 
fects  his  work  as  a  work  of  art,  for  thereby 
he  shapes  it  to  perform  its  proper  function. 

We  are  now  ready  to  see  that,  besides 
those  inevitable  limiting  constructive  demands 
of  stagecraft,  the  dramatist  must  also  meet 
the  limiting  (usually)  destructive  demands  of 
theatrical  business,  in  order  to  write  a  so-called 
"practical"  play;  that  is,  a  play  likely  to  be 
produced. 

Now,  of  course,  a  truly  practical  play  may 
include  the  province  of  the  so-called  practical 
play,  and  fulfil  both  these  demands ;  that  is  to 
say,  —  a  play  which  is  adapted  by  its  own 

56 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

technical  perfection  for  stage  performance  may 
also  be  adapted  to  "draw,"  and  so  make 
money,  —  or,  it  may  not  be  so  adapted. 
That  will  depend  upon  the  content,  or  message 
of  the  play:  what  its  dramatist,  by  means  of 
the  play's  technique,  has  to  say  to  the  audience. 
If  he  says  what  the  audience  demands,  that 
is,  what  it  likes,  his  play  will  draw  and  make 
money;  otherwise  not.  Obviously,  then, 
if  public  demand  must  be  followed  and  not 
guided,  the  dramatist's  expression  must  de 
pend  upon  the  nature  of  his  theatrical  audi 
ence,  —  the  degree  of  its  taste  and  mentality 
which  are  the  causes  of  its  demand.  But  this 
demand,  as  now  diligently  cultivated  by  the 
playhouse,  is  the  law  of  increasing  emotional 
and  decreasing  intellectual  demand,  —  the 
Law  of  Dramatic  Deterioration.  We  have 
seen  that  the  working  of  this  law  is  admirably 
adapted  to  fulfil  the  requirements  of  theatri 
cal  business.  But  the  question  arises  :  Is  it 
adapted  to  fulfil  the  requirements  of  dramatic 
art? 

"Dramatic  art,"  says  Mr.  Yeats  again  in 
57 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

his  Preface,  "  is  a  method  of  expression,  and 
neither  an  hair-breadth  escape  nor  a  love 
affair  more  befits  it  than  the  passionate  ex 
position  of  the  most  delicate  and  strange  in 
tuitions."  But  in  this,  the  experienced  mana 
ger  does  not  agree  with  Mr.  Yeats.  Of  all 
reliable  factors  of  his  experience,  hair-breadth 
escapes  and  love  affairs  chiefly  befit  "dra 
matic  art"  as  he  conceives  it. 

And  why  this  preference  on  the  part  of  the 
manager  for  such  factors  of  experience,  rather 
than  for  "  the  most  passionate  exposition  of  the 
most  delicate  and  strange  intuitions,"  or  than 
for  a  thousand  larger  dramatic  themes  ex 
pressible  only  by  fine  art?  Why  does  he 
prefer  to  deal  in  the  reliable  "hair-breadth 
escape"  and  the  long- tested  "love  affair"? 

For  the  same  reason  that  a  gentleman's 
furnisher  prefers  rather  to  deal  in  dress  shirts 
and  socks  than  in  dry-goods'  and  woollen  stuffs. 
He  has  acquired  his  stock  in  trade  and  his 
constituency.  It  is  conceivable  that  a  change 
of  specialty  from  socks  to  suitings  might  meet 
with  financial  success;  but  since  he  caters  to 

58 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

his  own  restricted  public,  the  result  of  such 
a  change  would  be  dubious. 

So,  too,  the  manager  has  acquired  his 
specialty  and  his  restricted  public;  so,  also, 
to  change  his  stock  in  trade,  —  to  shift,  let 
us  say,  from  musical  comedy  to  psychologi 
cal  drama,  —  might  lose  him  his  constituency 
—  his  clientele.  In  a  business  wherein  he  has 
invested  thousands,  possibly  hundreds  of 
thousands,  of  dollars,  to  experiment  in  new 
brands  and  labels  might  prove  ruinous;  pre 
carious  it  would  be,  in  any  event. 

Certain  emotional  commodities  —  such  as 
hair-breadth  escapes  and  love  affairs  —  have 
proved  for  him  "a  sure  thing''  in  the  past, 
and  as  such  are  not  to  be  departed  from.  For 
the  motto  of  theatrical  business  is  this:  that 
what  has  once  made  money  will,  rehashed, 
make  money  again.  A  policy  with  many 
unseen  flaws,  proved  by  as  many  financial 
failures;  but  a  simple  policy,  with  large 
promise  of  security.  Thus  commercial  neces 
sity  produces  artistic  monotony.  This  mo 
notony,  as  a  result  of  that  policy,  is  most  clearly 

59 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

observable  in  those  departments  of  the  theatri 
cal  business  where  the  creative  artist  is  least 
dominant;  in  musical  comedy,  for  instance, 
where  one  needs  only  to  compare  the  popular 
songs  of  one  season  with  those  of  another,  to 
recognize  their  basic  identity.  Thus,  by 
financial  necessity,  the  great  dramatic  ranges 
of  creative  thought  and  imagination  are  left 
practically  unexplored,  uncultivated;  and  the 
public  itself,  by  the  very  nature  of  conditions, 
is  prevented  from  enlarging  its  horizon. 

True,  a  certain  scope  of  variety  in  our  plays 
is  permissible,  even  profitable,  as  novelty. 
For,  as  when  this  year's  fashion  substitutes 
a  loose-knit  tie  for  last  year's  ascot,  or  a 
soaring  picture  hat  for  last  season's  toque, 
even  so  it  is  with  our  plays;  this  season's  cow 
boy  is  substituted  as  hero  for  last  season's 
exiled  baronet ;  the  Lady  from  Lanes  for  the 
Lady  of  Lyons.  Now  London  drama  is  the 
fashion;  and  now  the  edict  goes  forth  that 
"American  plays  will  be  worn." 

And  this,  let  us  observe,  —  all  this  is  said 
to  be  public  demand;  on  all  sides,  in  press, 

60 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

and  club,  and  theatre,  it  is  labelled  and  ac 
cepted  as  "public  demand."  But  how  much 
does  the  public  really  demand,  or  control,  the 
fashions  in  dress  and  merchandise?  Nega 
tively,  a  very  little;  positively,  not  at  all. 
Those  fashions  are  set  by  an  undeterminable 
few,  or  are  set,  through  the  mutual  conference 
of  its  leaders,  by  commercial  policies  of  the 
trade.  These  policies  occasionally  the  public 
may  restively  kick  against  or  reject;  but  this 
negative  protest  is  indulged  in  very  seldom. 
Almost  universally  the  public  —  the  great 
people  —  is  docile :  to  the  bag-cut  trousers, 
or  the  balloon-shaped  sleeves,  it  submits  as 
a  sheep  to  the  shearer.  No  more  does  the 
real  public  —  the  great  people  —  demand  or 
control  the  fashions  in  plays.  Negatively, 
it  may  reject,  by  staying  away ;  and  this  pre 
rogative  a  considerable  percentage  of  the 
public  makes  use  of  nearly  all  the  time ;  for 
it  very  seldom  goes  near  the  theatre  at  all 
because  its  taste  is  very  seldom  pleased  there ; 
and  the  remaining  greater  percentage  of 
regular  theatre-goers  stays  away  whenever 

61 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

its  taste  is  not  pleased.  But  that  taste  of 
the  regular  theatre-goer,  which  is  so  generally 
labelled  and  accepted  as  "public  demand,"  is 
not  really  a  positive,  initial  factor  of  demand, 
but  it  is  a  reflex  factor  resulting  from  the  educa 
tion  which  the  play-goer  has  received  from 
decades  of  business  policy  in  building  up  a 
theatrical  constituency;  and  that  policy  is 
based  on  the  aforesaid  psychological  Law 
of  Dramatic  Deterioration,  which  expresses 
itself  in  the  motto:  "What  has  once  made 
money  will,  rehashed,  make  money  again." 

Thus  so-called  "public  demand"  is  really 
nothing  more  than  the  negative  demand  of 
a  particular  constituency  of  play-goers,  long 
educated  under  those  business  conditions. 

But  to  the  demands  of  this  constituency 
the  dramatist,  in  his  capacity  of  manufacturer 
for  the  theatrical  retailer,  is  asked  and  re 
quired  to  bow.  That  is,  he  is  required  to 
adapt  his  work  not  primarily  to  the  require 
ments  of  dramatic  art,  but  to  the  require 
ments  of  theatrical  business.  If  he  believes 
in  the  existence  of  a  real  public  demand  for 

62 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

glimpses  of  the  vast  unexplored  ranges  of 
dramatic  art,  or  if  he  believes  that  such  a 
demand  might  be  created  and  cultivated  in 
the  public,  he  may  keep  those  convictions  to 
himself,  for  —  naturally  enough  —  they  are 
of  no  interest  to  the  retailer. 

When,  therefore,  Mr.  Yeats  says,  "The 
dramatist  is  as  free  as  the  painter  of  good 
pictures,"  etc.,  we  may  perhaps  see  more 
clearly  than  before  how  he  declares  for  his 
fellow-artists  an  ideal  truth,  which,  if  spoken 
in  the  theatre  box  office,  would  ring  like  irony. 

For  the  painter  of  good  pictures,  though  he 
is  frequently  permitted  by  an  ignoring  public 
to  starve,  has  never  yet  been  encouraged  to  do 
his  worst  or  his  middling  best,  in  order  to 
attain  preeminence  as  a  painter;  on  the  con 
trary,  he  knows  that,  to  achieve  that  pre 
eminence,  he  must  pit  his  highest  powers 
against  the  masters,  and  not  the  middlemen 
of  his  art;  and  he  knows  that  the  public 
galleries  and  salons  where  his  works  are 
selected  for  exhibition,  are  controlled  and 
directed  by  his  fellow-artists,  and  not  by  mer- 

63 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

chants  of  his  art ;  that  his  work  will  be  passed 
upon  by  a  jury  of  his*  fellow-craftsmen  who 
have  attained  distinction,  —  a  jury  wfio,  pre 
sumably,  will  accept  or  reject  his  work  ac 
cording  to  standards  of  artistic  excellence 
alone,  —  not  by  a  jury  of  merchants,  whose 
standards  of  selection,  necessarily  are  those 
of  the*  demand^  of  their  constituency  and  of 
their  own  ^personal  profit. 

A  jury  of  one's  peers  and  masters  in  art  — 
does  the  public  realize  what  that  means  to 
the  artist?  What  that  means  to  the  public 
itself?  For  the  painter,  the  result  in  his 
art  is  not  only  the  incentive  to  excel,  but  the 
necessity  for  excelling ;  for  his  public,  the 
result  is  the  maintenance  of  standards  of  com 
parison  and  appreciation  in  that  art,  set, 
not  by  their  own  untutored  whims  and  va 
garies,  or  by  the  long  mis-schooling  of  their 
instincts,  but  by  the  skilled  judgment  of 
chosen  creative  artists. 

Such  a  necessity  for  excellence  results  in  the 
survival  of  the  really  fittest!  Such  competi 
tion  every  true  artist  is  joyous  to  engage  in. 

64 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

The  musical  composer  —  he,  too,  may  pit 
his  best  powers  against  the  masters,  and  find 
a  select  body  of  his  peers  ready  to  welcome 
his  work,  to  judge  it,  and  to  choose  it  for 
acclaim  singly  by  the  standards  of  his  art. 
But  where  would  the  works  of  our  native 
composers  —  of  MacDowell,  and  Parker,  and 
Converse  —  be  played,  if  no  endowed  sym 
phony  orchestras  existed?  In  what  com 
mercial  concert  hall  or  music  pavilion  would 
they  be  heard  ?  Or  what  musical  menu  would 
be  served  by  our  symphony  orchestras  them 
selves  if,  by  necessity,  their  directors  must 
first  consult  for  their  programme  the  selective 
judgment  of  a  popular  constituency,  educated  for 
generations  in  the  demands  of  average  taste  ? 

Yet  such  is  the  judgment  which  the  producer 
of  plays  is  compelled  to  consult.  We  need 
hardly  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  frequent 
effect  of  this  necessity  upon  dramatic  pro 
duction  as  an  art  is  as  if  the  symphony  or 
chestra,  bereft  of  its  director,  should  disin 
tegrate  into  a  jargon  of  flute-solos,  fiddle-duets, 
and  tattoos  of  the  snare-drum. 
if  65 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

For  the  painter,  the  sculptor,  the  musical 
composer,  —  for  each  in  his  craft,  exists  a 
jury  of  his  peers  or  masters.  For  the  drama 
tist,  none.  For  him,  such  a  jury  is  not  even 
dreamed  of;  as  conditions  are,  it  could  not 
possibly  exist.  Yet  let  us  be  sure  of  this; 
that,  if  there  be  any  pertinent  truth  in  the 
analogies  I  have  drawn,  that  dream  for  our 
drama  must  yet  be  dreamed  and  realized, 
those  conditions  which  are,  must  cease  to  be, 
and  those  which  are  better  must  be  established. 

In  order,  however,  to  realize  for  our  theatre 
these  better  conditions  of  enlightenment  and 
leadership,  it  is  needful  for  us  to  understand 
existing  conditions  fundamentally,  so  that 
we  may  seek  to  reform  them,  not  with  personal 
vindictiveness,  but  with  impersonal  reason 
ableness.  In  this  reform  we  are  concerned 
with  an  inward  opposition  of  functions  in  the 
playhouse  —  the  opposition  of  the  functions 
of  art  and  of  business.  We  are  concerned, 
therefore,  not  with  a  conflict  of  persons  and 
personalities,  but  with  a  conflict  of  social  and 
psychological  forces.  The  forces  of  commer- 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

cial  demand  and  supply  result,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  the  operation  of  an  accelerative  tendency, 
or  law,  which  I  have  called  the  Law  of  Dra 
matic  Deterioration.  This  Law  is  opposed  to 
the  rational  aim  of  dramatic  art.  To  solve 
our  problem  fundamentally,  then,  and  to 
establish  our  reform  in  the  playhouse  per 
manently,  the  operation  of  this  baneful  law 
must  be  checked  by  understanding  and  re 
moving  its  causes;  and  as  a  substitute,  the 
operation  of  a  beneficent  law  must  be  set  in 
motion,  by  understanding  and  utilizing  its 
causes.  Now  the  causes  for  the  operation 
of  the  Law  of  Dramatic  Deterioration  are  the 
forces  of  commercial  demand  and  supply. 
Therefore,  to  annul  that  law,  the  forces  of 
commercial  demand  and  supply  must  be  per 
manently  annulled  in  the  playhouse.  As  a 
substitute  for  those  forces,  the  forces  of  artistic 
competition  must  take  their  place,  and  set  in 
motion  a  law  creative  of  (Esthetic  demand  and 
supply  —  a  law  which  may  appropriately  be 
called  the  Law  of  Dramatic  Regeneration.  By 
this  means,  the  skilled  judgment  of  acknowl- 

67 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

edged  masters  in  dramatic  art  will  select, 
from  among  competing  dramatists,  the  fittest 
to  survive ;  and  in  turn  this  selection,  through 
artistic  competition,  will  by  its  supply  create 
a  responsive  demand  in  the  public,  who  will 
thus,  for  the  first  time,  acquire  unconsciously 
self-discipline  in  taste,  and  cultivate  for  them 
selves  in  the  playhouse  a  joy  which  does  not 
pall.  Just  as  the  competitions  of  American 
sculptors  are  passed  upon  by  a  jury  of  men 
like  French,  Barnard,  MacMonnies,  and  the 
late  Augustus  Saint- Gaudens,  acknowledged 
masters  in  sculpture,  so  is  it  equally  fitting  and 
necessary  that  the  works  of  competing  Ameri 
can  dramatists  should  be  passed  upon  by  the 
selective  judgment  of  supreme  craftsmen  in 
dramatic  art. 

The  greatest  need  of  the  playhouse  to-day  is 
this  survival  of  the  truly  fittest,  by  the  sub 
stitution  of  artistic  competition  for  commercial 
catering. 

Why,  then,  is  this  need  not  remedied? 
Who  is  responsible  for  the  undesirable  con 
ditions  which  exist? 

68 


y 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

It  has  become  the  habit  of  many  intelligent 
persons  devoted  to  the  higher  interests  of  the 
drama  to  accuse  the  commercial  managers, 
as  individuals,  for  the  existence  of  the  evils 
of  the  playhouse.  But  this  accusation  is 
both  wrong  and  unreasonable;  the  blame 
does  not  lie  there.  Conditions,  not  individuals, 
are  to  blame.  If  all  the  individuals  who  sway 
the  business  management  of  our  theatres  were 
to  resign  or  die  to-day,  to-morrow  would  see 
their  places  filled  by  persons  pursuing  the 
very  same  policies  as  their  predecessors.  And 
this  would  necessarily  be  so.  It  is  absurd  to 
demand  that  a  business  man  shall  ruin  his 
private  business.  It  is  not  absurd,  however, 
to  demand  that  a  private  business,  whose 
legitimate  function  is  that  of  a  public  art,  shall 
be  revolutionized  to  perform  that  function 
properly,  by  ceasing  to  be  a  business.  Not  the 
commercial  instincts  of  the  manager,  but 
the  commercial  functions  of  the  theatre,  are 
illegitimate,  in  the  interests  of  public  welfare. 
Not,  therefore,  the  manager,  nor  the  star,  nor 
the  dramatist,  is  chiefly  responsible  for  the 

69 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

needless  slavery  of  our  drama;  not  they,  but 
the  public  —  and  preeminently,  the  leading 
spirits  of  our  communities,  its  powerful  citizens 
and  its  educators  —  are  responsible.  For  they 
are  responsible  for  the  toleration  of  the  two 
fold  nature  of  the  playhouse, — a  nature  which 
makes  dramatic  art  at  war  with  itself  and, 
while  its  double  function  exists,  a  perpetual 
menace  to  the  higher  interests  of  society. 

You  also  whom  I  now  address  are  in  part 
responsible.  You  are  responsible  for  creat 
ing  —  or  failing  to  create  —  enlightened 
public  opinion,  whereby  the  American  play 
house  may  be  established  as  an  institution 
adapted  to  guide  and  lead  the  American  people 
by  the  art  of  the  play.  Alone,  the  writer  of 
plays  to-day  can  do  little  toward  such  an  end. 
Unlike  his  fellow  creative  artists,  the  playwright 
is  not  expected  to  guide  public  taste,  but  to 
cater  to  it.  When  the  playhouse,  however,  shall 
become  the  authentic  instrument  of  dramatic 
leadership  —  of  the  creative  idea,  the  play 
wright  will  then  become  a  very  powerful  factor 
in  guiding  public  taste.  His  art  will  then 

70 


.    THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

become,  for  the  first  time,  an  effectual  in 
fluence  for  public  enlightenment;  and  the 
dramatist  who  most  excels  in  his  art  will  then 
be  the  most  powerful  public  leader.  Until 
that  time  comes,  however,  the  onus  ofVre- 
sponsibility  lies  upon  you  —  the  intelligent 
public.  ^Vp 

.nd  this  leads  me  to  the  consideration  of 
a  third  limiting  influence  of  the  playhouse: 
one  which,  though  less  specific  than  the  other 
two,  is  all-important;  namely,  the  limiting 
influence  of  the  status  of  the  playhouse  in  the 
community  upon  the  whole  of  dramatic  art. 
The  first  limiting  influence  —  that  of  stage 
craft  —  we  saw  to  be  constructive  and  bene 
ficial  to  the  art  of  dramaturgy.  The  second 
—  that  of  box-office  policy  —  we  saw  to  be 
destructive  and  harmful  to  the  scope  of  the 
dramatist's  conception.  The  third  —  that  of 
social  status  —  we  shall  see  to  be  beneficial 
or  harmful,  stimulating  or  destructive,  to 
both  dramatic  conception  and  to  dramaturgy, 
according  as  the  attitude  of  the  public  shall 
determine. 

71 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

But,  it  may  again  be  objected,  if  the 
art  of  the  playhouse  were  already  of  higher 
calibre,  its  esteem  in  the  community  would 
be  higher. 

To  which  I  reply,  The  reverse  of  this  ob 
jection  is  the  necessary  first  step  to  its  solution. 
If  the  esteem  of  the  community  for  dramatic 
art  were  higher^  the  status  of  the  playhouse 
would  be  higher. 

What,  then,  is  the  reasonable  and  fitting 
esteem  in  which  dramatic  art  should  be  held 
by  the  community  ?  What  potential  qualities 
does  the  drama  of  its  nature  possess  for  the 
reverence  and  esteem  of  the  public? 

The  drama  is  peculiarly  an  art  for  the  people; 
it  epitomizes  the  hearts  of  millions  in  an  in 
dividual  ;  it  is  capable  —  as  no  other  art  is 
capable  —  of  summing  up  and  expressing  the 
vital  conflicts  and  aspirations  of  a  race;  the 
scope  and  gamut  of  a  nation's  consciousness. 
It  has  power  to  rekindle  the  past,  to  fore 
shadow  the  future,  of  mankind,  by  moving 
images  which  impress  their  form  upon  the 
plastic  present.  In  essential  dignity  and  power 

72 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

to  inspire,  it  has  the  same  rights  to  the  rever 
ence  of  a  people  as  the  spirit  of  religion,  to 
which  it  is  akin. 

The  drama  of  the  ancients  had  its  origin 
beside  the  altars  of  their  gods;  enacted  upon 
a  hallowed  stage,  it  expressed  the  aspiration, 
joy,  and  passion  of  a  people.  The  modern 
drama  had  likewise  its  origin  in  the  popular 
heart  of  religion;  under  the  arches  of  mediae 
val  cathedrals,  it  bodied  forth  to  the  multitude 
images  of  heaven  and  hell;  under  its  charm, 
the  rude  mob  was  refined,  the  garlic-eating 
crowds  were  moved  to  pity  and  awe  and 
sympathetic  delight. 

Those  times  have  passed  away,  yet  neither 
the  nature  of  the  drama  nor  of  humanity  has 
changed.  To-day,  as  in  every  age,  the  drama 
remains  the  elemental  art  of  man,  and  as  long 
as  humanity  remains  sacred  to  humanity,  so 
long  will  the  drama  demand  human  reverence. 
Because  of  this  elemental  capacity,  the  drama, 
more  than  any  other  art,  may  express  man's 
passionate  joy  of  life,  whereby  its  works  are 
felicitously  called  plays.  The  playhouse, 


73 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

then,  is  properly  the  house  of  the  joy  of  life, 
dedicated  to  the  Genius  of  Aspiration.  The 
function  of  a  temple  is  its  only  legitimate 
function. 

But  that  same  oblique-eyed  spirit  which 
broke  the  beautiful  idols  of  fauns  and  Grecian 
deities,  and  smashed  the  images  of  stained- 
glass  saints,  long  since  looked  upon  the  living 
images  of  the  playhouse  with  suspicion,  and 
shattered  the  earlier  ideals  of  play  and  play 
ers  with  contempt.  The  iconoclast  and  the 
Puritan  combined  to  close  the  doors  of  the 
playhouse  as  a  public  temple  of  the  joy  of  life ; 
and  over  its  doors,  suspended,  they  placed 
Satan,  with  Miltonian  wings,  to  shed  dark 
ness  on  the  drama,  obscuring  its  religious 
function  from  the  people.  And  so  to-day, 
though  the  Puritan  has  departed  and  Satan 
has  lost  his  anathema,  and  though  the  people 
once  more  flock  back  in  multitudes  to  the 
playhouse,  yet  they  no  longer  enter  it  as  a 
public  temple;  new  generations  have  for 
gotten  that  ever  it  was  one,  for  they  find  it 
occupied  by  private  merchants;  and  the  joy 

74 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

of  life  which  they  view  there  is  no  longer 
dedicated  to  their  common  aspiration. 

Yet  all  this  is  not  due  to  the  nature  of  the 
people,  or  of  the  playhouse;  it  is  due  to  a 
historical  misconception  of  the  playhouse. 
That  misconception  once  removed  from  the 
public  mind,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  play 
house  should  not  revert  permanently  to  its 
original  beneficent  function. 

The  righting  of  this  mighty  misconception 
has  indeed  already  begun  in  numerous  places. 
One  of  the  most  winning  and  notable  instances 
is  the  work  —  or  rather  the  emancipating 
play  —  of  the  child-players  at  the  Educational 
Theatre  in  New  York.  Those  children,  whose 
leaders,  with  exceptional  insight,  have  pro 
vided  their  spontaneous  expression  with  dis 
cipline,  have  adopted,  with  simple  ardor,  the 
earliest  ideal  of  the  playhouse.  Poor,  neglected, 
overworked  in  the  sweatshops  by  day,  they 
turn  at  night  to  their  playhouse  as  to  a  place 
hallowed  by  the  joy  of  life,  and  enact  their 
plays  like  ritual  hymns  chanted  to  that  res 
ident  deity  of  Delight.  The  Educational 

75 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

Theatre  for  children  and  young  people  is  build 
ing  a  solid  corner-stone  for  an  ideal  theatre 
in  America.  It  is  not  only  imbuing  our 
youngest  generations  with  reverence  for  a 
great  public  art,  but  it  is  modestly  exemplify 
ing  for  the  intelligent  public  certain  vital 
issues  of  the  drama.  How  long,  then,  will 
the  intelligent  public  continue  to  ignore  those 
vital  issues  as  they  apply  to  the  whole  drama 
of  our  nation  ?  Certainly  it  cannot  be  intelli 
gent  and  ignore  them  longer.  For  our  drama 
is  a  tide  of  living  influence;  strong  and  im 
petuous  as  mighty  waters  loosed,  nightly  it 
rolls  over  the  tired  nation,  and  reanimates  its 
waning  forces  — for  better  or  for  worse. 

So  vast  an  influence  it  behooves  a  people  to 
regulate  for  their  own  good.  We  that  expend, 
in  a  generation,  millions  on  millions  to  establish 
strong  reservoirs  of  uncontaminated  water, 
to  supply  our  cities  and  their  aqueducts  — 
how  much  have  we  expended,  in  a  century, 
to  preserve  pure  for  our  people  the  well-springs 
of  our  drama  ?  —  Nothing ;  far  less  than 
nothing;  for  we  have  done  the  very  opposite 

76 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

of  this,  and  increasingly  have  given  our  sup 
port,  in  money  and  public  opinion,  to  a  noxious 
misconception  of  the  playhouse  and  the  play. 
In  what  civic  club  —  in  what  pulpit  —  in 
what  benevolent  society  —  in  what  organiza 
tion  of  leading  citizens  —  have  we  heard 
rumors  of  zeal  to  investigate  this  scandal  ? 
What  chemist  experts  have  tested  the  diluted 
poisons  which  so  often  distil  from  those 
ubiquitous  tap-rooms  —  our  theatres  ?  What 
mass  meetings  of  educators  have  been  called 
to  renovate  and  cleanse  those  fountains  of  our 
public  taste  and  mentality?  You  know  the 
answer.  These  things  are  ignored  —  univer 
sally  ignored.  Yet,  until  these  things  shall 
be  realized,  until  we  as  a  people  shall  rouse 
ourselves  to  investigate  and  understand  the 
ideal  nature  of  the  playhouse,  —  its  true  func 
tion  in  the  community,  and  the  potential 
grandeur  of  that  function  in  transfusing  our 
common  life  with  agencies  of  higher  public 
welfare,  then  to  compare  with  that  the 
bathos  and  folly  of  existing  conditions,  —  let 
not  the  critical  and  hopeful  minority  ask,  or 

77 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

expect,  an  effectual  renascence  of  our  drama. 
For  I  repeat  —  and  it  is  well  to  repeat  —  that 
deeper  than  the  limiting  influences  of  stage 
craft  and  theatrical  business  upon  the  form 
and  scope  of  our  plays,  is  the  limiting  influence 
of  the  public  attitude  toward  the  whole  in 
stitution  of  the  theatre  upon  dramatic  art 
itself. 

Sporadically,  interruptedly,  a  particular 
artist,  or  group  of  artists,  may,  by  dint  of  in 
domitable  desire,  patience,  or  special  op 
portunity,  rise  up,  combat  conditions,  and  be 
heard.  But  upon  this  can  be  founded  no 
universal  movement,  no  permanent  tradition, 
of  national  drama.  The  individual  artist 
may  perhaps  make  temporary  headway,  but, 
until  conditions  are  changed,  he  can  hope  to 
leave  no  lasting  bulwarks  against  the  strong, 
perennial  billows  of  commercialism. 

Commercialism :  this  is  a  hackneyed  word, 
but  it  names  a  potent  force;  a  force  which, 
however  it  may  conduce  to  the  welfare  of 
individuals,  serves  no  useful  end  in  art  or  in 
democracy.  Realization  of  this  fact  has  long 

78 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

since  banished  commercialism  from  our 
churches,  our  public  schools,  our  public 
libraries,  our  universities,  our  symphony  or 
chestras;  the  same  realization  is  banishing 
it  from  other  public  utilities  and  arts;  the 
same  realization  must  banish  it  forever  as 
a  vital  force  from  our  theatres. 

Such  is  the  only  permanent  remedy  for  the 
evils  we  are  discussing,  and  there  can  be  no 
compromise. 

The  status  of  the  playhouse  in  society  is 
as  vital  as  the  status  of  the  university  in  society. 
The  dignity  and  efficiency  of  the  one  demand 
the  same  safeguarding  against  inward  de 
terioration  as  the  dignity  and  efficiency  of  the 
other.  The  functions  of  both  are  educative. 
And  if  the  special  function  of  the  playhouse 
be  to  produce  civic-inspiring  art,  and  of  the 
university  civic-inspiring  scholarship,  why  — 
by  what  standard,  rational  or  ethical  —  is  the 
playhouse  left  to  perform  its  proper  function, 
utterly  exposed  to  the  temptations  and  corrup 
tions  of  commercial  supply  and  demand, 
while  the  university  is  bastioned,  in  the  serene 

79 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

performance   of  its   function,   by   the   strong 
walls  of  endowment? 

Imagine  the  converse  of  this.  Imagine  a 
university  utterly  devoid  of  endowment:  a 
university  of  which  the  president,  as  innocent 
of  all  the  arts  and  sciences  as  he  is  of  English 
grammar,  dictates  his  policies  of  private  gain 
to  a  board  of  directors,  organized  to  hire  a 
half -tutored  faculty,  and  outwit  one  another 
for  personal  profit;  a  faculty,  gathered  from 
every  walk  of  life,  to  perform  in  the  lecture 
halls  strange  gymnastics  and  magician's  won 
ders,  for  the  delectation  of  undergraduates; 
a  professor  of  classics,  strayed  haphazard  from 
some  nobler  foreign  institution,  in  his  heart 
still  the  vision  of  sane  learning  and  a  beautiful 
tradition,  deputed  now  to  translate  Homer 
into  slang,  lest  his  professorship  shall  be 
cancelled  and  his  family  starve;  and  between 
the  Homeric  cantos  —  that  concentration  may 
not  weary  the  students  —  a  doctor  of  philoso 
phy  rises  to  improvise  on  the  bagpipes,  while 
the  Instructor  of  Fine  Arts  lately  graduated 
from  the  barroom,  summa  cum  laude,  accom- 

80 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

panics  the  philosopher  —  amid  thunders  of 
applause  —  by  a  clog  dance. 

A  grotesque  supposition;  yes,  grotesque; 
but  let  us  remember  this :  being  devoid  of 
endowment,  that  university  would  have  to 
adapt  itself  to  commercial  demand  and  supply, 
and  consequently  that  grotesque  condition 
would  exist  by  necessity  —  commercial  neces 
sity  —  in  order  that  the  university  might  sur 
vive! 

But  would  there  be  any  public  use  for  the 
survival  of  such  a  university?  Would  its 
survival  be  the  survival  of  anything  really  fit 
to  survive? 

Would  the  leading  citizens  and  educators  of 
America  tolerate  a  condition  of  affairs  in  which 
such  a  grotesque  kind  of  university  was  the 
only  kind  in  existence  ?  Or  would  they  rebel, 
and  raise  a  sufficient  sum  of  money  to  revo 
lutionize  that  absurd  condition,  —  a  sum, 
namely,  sufficient  to  transplant  that  institu 
tion  of  the  arts  and  sciences  out  of  the  sterile 
soil  of  commercial  supply  and  demand,  and 
replant  it  for  all  time  in  the  virile  soil  of 

G  81 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

artistic  competition?  Would  they  do  this, 
or  not? 

That  would  doubtless  depend  upon  the 
nature  of  intelligent  public  opinion.  But 
that  grotesque  institution  would  probably  have 
educated  the  so-called  intelligent  public  to  be 
satisfied  with  it.  In  any  event,  the  public 
could  hardly  expect  that  institution  itself  to 
reform  itself  out  of  existence. 

No;  reform  would  have  to  begin  from  out 
side.  In  all  effectual  movements  for  public 
enlightenment,  reform  must  begin  with  the 
intelligent  demand  of  a  few  for  the  establish 
ment  of  proper  conditions,  which  will  create 
and  educate  the  same  intelligent  demand  from 
the  many.  In  the  theatre,  as  in  the  univer 
sity,  those  proper  conditions  are  the  conditions 
of  endowment.1  But  for  John  Harvard  and 
Elihu  Yale,  centuries  ago,  the  organized  culti 
vation  of  the  humanities  in  America  might 
not  have  emerged  from  chaotic  neglect  — 
who  can  say  till  how  many  years  later?  In 
those  primitive  New  England  days,  to  be  sure, 

1  See  Comment  on  page  205. 
82 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

our  public  benefactors  were  only  concerned 
with  their  thousands;  to-day,  they  seek  a 
beneficent  use  for  their  millions. 

Where,  then,  to-day  is  a  John  Harvard 
for  the  humanities  of  our  theatre  ?  An  Elihu 
Yale  for  the  higher  ministrations  of  dramatic 
art? 

But  —  I  hear  the  retort  —  your  analogy 
is  not  sound;  the  universities  are  concerned 
with  education,  the  theatres  with  amusement. 

Let  us  not  be  deceived  by  names. 

In  theatrical  amusement  we  are  concerned 
with  public  happiness.  Real  happiness  means 
education;  real  education  means  happiness. 
And  in  regard  to  our  drama  there  can  be  no 
sounder,  no  more  enlightening,  conviction 
than  this  truth:  that  by  whatever  name  we 
choose  to  call  it,  the  influence  of  our  theatres 
is  a  colossal,  a  national  influence  in  forming 
the  taste,  the  moral  will,  the  mental  capacity, 
of  our  people.  Whether  we  know  it  or 
not,  our  theatres  are  supplied  —  in  passion, 
imagination,  and  delight  —  with  means  of 
appeal  far  more  potent  than  any  possessed  by 

83 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

our  schools  and  colleges ;  and  whether  we  like 
it  or  not,  night  after  night,  year  after  year, 
our  theatres  are  educating  our  people,  by  the 
millions  and  tens  of  millions.  The  question 
is,  Shall  the  theatres  educate  those  millions 
right,  or  wrong? 

I  have  sought  to  make  clear  the  relation  of 
play  to  playhouse,  and  the  double  nature  of 
the  existing  playhouse  —  to  this  end,  that  in 
seeking  a  rational  solution  for  its  problems, 
we  may  henceforth  consider  the  legitimate 
function  of  the  playhouse  as  single,  and  not 
double ;  as  a  function  of  an  art  for  the  people, 
not  of  a  private  business.  In  brief,  I  have 
sought  simply  to  clarify  public  opinion  with 
reason.  For  a  reasonable  understanding  has 
entered  little  into  the  public's  notice  of  the 
playhouse.  For  him  who  has  ears  and  eyes, 
the  misuse  and  misconception  of  the  theatre's 
function  are  flagrant;  they  beckon  and  shout 
at  us  from  the  streets  of  all  our  cities. 

What  is  to  be  done? 

From  all  we  have  been  considering,  it  is 
clear  that:  — 

84 


J^J 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

First:  The  playhouse,  as  an  institution  in 
America,  is  a  vital  concern  of  the  American 
people. 

Second:  As  such,  the  efficient  regulation 
of  its  functions  to  the  ends  of  greatest  public 
service  is  the  concern  of  the  leaders  of  the 
American  people  —  our  eminent  educators,  our 
civic  societies,  our  powerful  and  altruistic 
citizens. 

Third :  Reformation  of  the  playhouse  is  not 
a  matter  of  reforming  individuals,  but  of  re 
forming  conditions. 

Fourth:  The  efficient  regulation  of  the 
functions  of  the  playhouse  to  the  ends  of 
greatest  public  service  is  impossible  without 
reformation,  owing  to  the  present  operation 
of  the  law  of  commercial  demand  and  supply, 
which  is  identical  with  the  Law  of  Dramatic 
Deterioration. 

Fifth:  As  the  chief  vital  act  of  reform,  there 
fore,  the  operation  of  the  Law  of  Dramatic 
Deterioration  must  be  permanently  checked, 
and  the  Law  of  Dramatic  Regeneration  must 
be  substituted  for  it;  that  is,  the  motive  of 

85 


THE    PLAYHOUSE    AND    THE    PLAY 

commercial  demand  and  supply  must  be  sup 
planted  by  the  motive  of  artistic  competition  for 
the  awards  of  master  craftsmen. 

Thus  for  the  first  time  in  America,  the  play 
house  will  be  free  to  become  an  institution  of 
leadership  in  public  service. 

To  this  end,  one  means  —  first,  last,  and 
indispensable  —  is  demanded :  absolute  en- 
dowment  for  absolute  freedom.1 

1  See  Comment  on  page  205. 


THE  DRAMA  OF  DEMOCRACY 


THE  DRAMA  OF  DEMOCRACY 

a     /a 

IN  the  year  1837,  before  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  Society  at  Cambridge,  Mass., 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  made  his  declaration 
of  independence  for  the  American  Scholar. 
Rising  to  address  that  body  of  scholars,  he 
said :  "  Perhaps  the  time  is  already  come  when 
the  sluggard  intellect  of  this  continent  will 
look  from  under  its  iron  lids,  and  fill  the  post 
poned  expectations  of  the  world  with  some 
thing  better  than  the  exertions  of  mechanical 
skill.  Our  day  of  dependence,  our  long 
apprenticeship  to  the  learning  of  other  lands, 
draws  to  a  close.  The  millions  that  around 
us  are  rushing  into  life,  cannot  always  be  fed 
on  the  sere  remains  of  foreign  harvests. 
Events,  actions,  arise,  that  must  be  sung,  that 
will  sing  themselves.  Who  can  doubt  that 
poetry  will  revive  and  lead  in  a  new  age,  and 
one  day  be  the  pole-star  for  a  thousand  years  ?  " 

89 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

And  in  concluding  his  address,  he  said : 
"Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen,  this  con 
fidence  in  the  unsearched  might  of  man 
belongs,  by  all  motives,  by  all  prophecy,  by  all 
preparation,  to  the  American  Scholar.  We 
have  listened  too  long  to  the  courtly  muses  of 
Europe.  The  spirit  of  the  American  freeman 
is  already  suspected  to  be  timid,  imitative, 
tame.  Public  and  private  avarice  make  the 
air  we  breathe  thick  and  fat.  Young  men  of 
the  fairest  promise,  who  begin  life  upon  our 
shores,  inflated  by  the  mountain  winds,  shined 
upon  by  all  the  stars  of  God,  find  the  earth 
below  not  in  unison  with  these,  —  but  are 
hindered  from  action  by  the  disgust  which  the 
principles  on  which  business  is  managed  in 
spire,  and  turn  drudges,  or  die  of  disgust  — 
some  of  them  suicides.  What  is  the  remedy  ? 
They  did  not  yet  see,  and  thousands  of  young 
men  as  hopeful  now  crowding  to  the  barriers 
for  the  career,  do  not  yet  see,  that  if  the  single 
man  plant  himself  indomitably  on  his  in 
stincts,  and  there  abide,  the  huge  world  will 
come  round  to  him.  Brothers  and  friends  — 

90 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

we  will  walk  on  our  own  feet;  we  will  work 
with  our  own  hands;  we  will  speak  our  own 
minds." 

It  is  now  seventy  years  since  those  words 
were  first  spoken.  They  were  revolutionary 
for  all  time,  and  the  native  bloom  and  growth 
of  self-reliance  which  Emerson  then  predicted 
have  since  been  evidenced,  gradually  but  in 
dubitably,  through  three  generations  of  our 
American  scholars,  poets,  and  artists. 

Yet  in  one  vast  field  of  art  and  opportunity, 
there  has  shown  but  a  faint  Spring  and  a 
fainter  harvest  of  indigenous  confidence  and 
growth.  The  American  Drama  still  lies  fal 
low  for  the  seed  of  the  native  poet ;  the  Ameri 
can  theatre,  its  institution,  stands  walled,  and 
well-nigh  hermetically  sealed,  against  the 
possible  percolations  of  American  scholar 
ship  and  poetry.  For  this  important  effect 
there  are  simple  and  important  causes.  Not, 
however,  now  to  analyze  the  reasons  for  this 
unnatural  torpidity  in  so  vital  an  art  as  the 
drama,  it  becomes  us  none  the  less  to  ponder 
deeply  the  indisputable  fact,  and  to  consider 

91 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

that,  as  the  true  scholar  has  been  defined  by 
that  same  philosopher  as  "man  thinking," 
so  is  it  now  more  than  ever  incumbent  upon 
the  American  dramatist  that  he  be  truly  a 
scholar  within  that  broad  definition. 

In  view,  therefore,  of  this  responsibility, 
there  may,  I  think,  be  made  to-day  a  like 
prediction  of  independence  specifically  for  the 
American  drama  to  that  which  seventy  years 
ago  was  made,  in  general,  for  American 
scholarship;  independence,  that  is,  as  well 
from  the  persuasive  "Muses  of  Europe," 
as  from  their  persuaded  minstrels  in  America ; 
independence  wherein  are  summed  up  self- 
knowledge,  self-reliance,  and  the  realization 
of  the  unique  function  and  the  divergent  op 
portunity  which  are  potential  in  the  drama 
of  our  democracy.  ^  v 

It  is  needless  to  remind  ourselves  of  theyin/- 
calculable  debt  in  art,  letters,  and  civilization, 
which  we  owe  to  those  Muses  of  Europe  and 
of  England;  it  is  as  needless  to  reflect  that, 
in  this  modern  day,  with  increasing  ratio, 
all  corners  of  the  earth  are  conspiring  to  be- 

92 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

come  one  in  mutual  understanding;  that 
world-ideals  are  being  substituted  for  local 
ideals;  that  the  phonograph  joke  and  the 
dance  hall  proverb  are  interchangeable  symbols 
among  the  nations,  that  the  Peace  Conference 
has  twice  met,  and  that  the  parliament  of  man 
is  a  rational  presumption.  All  this  needs  not 
even  to  be  granted;  it  is  so. 

But  in  asking  you  to  consider  in  dramatic 
art  an  ideal  of  independence,  of  national 
diversity,  of  American  self-reliance,  I  am 
suggesting  nothing  which  is  in  conflict  with 
any  world-ideal  worthy  of  reason.  For  if 
there  shall  ever  be  met  a  parliament  of  man, 
in  the  arts  as  well  as  politics,  assuredly  it 
shall  never  meet  for  the  negation  of  man,  but 
it  shall  be  the  richer  and  mightier  for  every 
positive  contribution  of  distinctive  experience 
and  tradition  which  each  member  shall  con 
serve  from  his  own  inheritance  and  bring  to 
it  —  the  Asiatic,  the  European,  the  American, 
each  contributive  of  his  peculiar  zone  and 
meridian  of  wisdom,  harmonized  by  the  ethics 
of  a  common  human  interest. 

93 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

In  America,  therefore,  where  our  Cyclopean 
industries  of  iron  and  gold  and  brass  and 
blazing  ores  sit  on  our  Appalachians  and  our 
Rockies  and,  like  so  many  Polyphemi,  gaze 
down  with  fiery  eyes  upon  their  smoking 
hearth-stones  —  ten  thousand  cities  with  their 
consumed  humanity ;  in  America,  where  again 
the  silent  forests  range,  solitude  after  solitude, 
millions  of  acres,  and  you  shall  hear  nothing 
but  the  water-falls  and  the  wind,  and  behold 
nothing  but  far  peaks  and  endless  pines 
shadowing  their  own  twilight;  in  America, 
where  our  sky-scrapers,  tower  on  tower,  build 
another  Sidon  in  mid-air;  where  the  electric 
mules  tunnel  our  river-bottoms,  and  our 
huddled  citizens  build  conglomerate  homes 
like  mud- wasps ;  in  America,  if  we  shall  look 
around  us  with  fresh  eyes,  and  if,  with  fresh 
vision,  we  peer  into  that  Yankee  past  which 
produced  us,  and  beyond  to  the  horizon  of 
cosmopolitan  promise  which  is  our  destiny 
to  come,  surely  in  this  America  we  shall  dis 
cover,  in  riches,  more  than  the  raw  stuff  of 
our  bank  accounts ;  in  art,  more  than  a  mere 

94 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

standing-place  whence  we  may  crane  our 
pygmy  necks  toward  Rome  and  the  Old 
World ;  in  prophecy,  more  than  the  bourgeois 
hope  of  imitation  and  self-disguise. 

Yes,  in  all  this  native  material,  I  think  we 
shall  discover  national  incentives,  distinctive 
sources  of  appeal,  indigenous  seeds  of  growth 
for  the  renascence  of  a  popular  drama  such 
as,  in  possibilities  of  splendour  and  magni 
tude,  has  not  been  surpassed  in  history.  But 
to  this  end  it  is  obligatory  that  we  understand 
ourselves  and  our  theatrical  situation  thor 
oughly.  Such  a  renascence  may  be,  or  it 
may  not  be,  according  as  the  American  public 
does  or  does  not  inform  itself,  according  as 
the  American  dramatist  does  or  does  not 
liberate  himself.  It  is  not  enough  that  we 
detect  pernicious  theatrical  conditions,  if  we 
do  not  renovate  them  altogether;  it  is  not 
enough  if  we  shall  half  see  the  potentialities 
of  American  drama  through  eyes  educated  and 
enamoured  of  European  ideals;  we  must 
see  them  wholly,  distinctly,  freshly,  through 
eyes  enamoured  of  what  they  behold,  and 

95 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

so  body  their  large  spirit  forth  in  works  un 
adulterated,  at  once  American  and  universal. 

In  the  iris  of  this  clear  vision,  two  great 
motes  are  lodged  as  obstacles  that  blur  it. 
These  are:  — 

First,    Our    theatrical    conditions. 

Second,  The  exotic  nature  of  our  dramatic 
ideals.  The  first  is  all-important  objectively, 
the  second,  subjectively. 

No  extremity  of  emphasis  probably  could 
overstate  the  influence  of  the  nature  of  our 
theatres,  as  private  commercial  enterprise, 
in  retarding  the  growth  of  American  drama 
as  the  essential  art  and  expression  of  national 
life.  A  revolution  in  the  existing  system  is 
as  necessary  a  premise  to  the  emancipation  of 
the  drama  as  a  fine  art,  as  that  security  of 
endowment  which  has  established  to  the 
Symphony  Orchestras  their  liberty  and  success 
—  a  greater  revolution,  moreover,  in  propor 
tion  as  the  drama  is,  of  its  nature,  a  more  vital 
and  universal  self-expression  of  the  people. 
But  this  is  a  matter  which,  in  itself,  would 
require  the  full  measure  of  this  paper  to  dis- 

96 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

cuss,  and  as  I  have  sought  to  analyze  it  else 
where,1  I  must  here  dismiss  its  consideration. 
I  will  merely  repeat  that  it  is  of  prime  im 
portance  to  our  subject.  That  ground  must 
be  cleared  and  its  encumbrances  removed, 
before  ever  the  stately  fabric  of  a  national 
drama  can  be  builded. 

The  second  obstacle  to  the  development  of 
a  national  drama  of  world-status  in  America 
is,  as  I  have  said,  the  exotic  nature  of  our 
dramatic  ideals.  I  might  better  call  it  the 
suburbanite  nature  of  our  ideals.  From  what 
ever  causes,  it  so  happens  that  a  majority  of 
the  educated,  and  the  intellectual  amongst  us, 
though  robustly  American  in  citizenship,  re 
main,  in  art  and  aesthetic  aspiration,  suburb 
anites  of  Paris,  Berlin,  Rome,  London,  whence 
they  have,  in  their  happier  leisure,  drawn 
their  ideals.  Around  the  great  lights  of  those 
world-centres,  mothlike,  they  flutter  and  re 
volve,  happy  to  singe  the  native  hues  of  their 
own  modest  wings  and  antennae  in  the  fires 
of  those  transatlantic  stars  which  blaze  upon 

1  In  The  Playhouse  and  the  Play. 
H  97 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

our  darkness.  So,  in  dramatic  art,  the  in 
telligent  in  America  are  early  educated  in 
suburbanite  ideals.  That  is  to  say,  looking 
to  the  best  and  most  inspired  dramas  which 
modern  Europe  offers  us,  and  rejoicing  in  the 
technique  and  beauty  of  those  master  works, 
these  Americans  would  appropriate  the  masters 
to  themselves,  and  substitute  as  ideals  the 
foreign  motives  and  technique,  which  have 
rightly  made  those  artists  masters  in  their 
own  lands,  for  the  original  incentives  and 
the  native  craftsmanship,  which  alone  can 
create  for  us  masters  and  ideals  in  America. 
Not  to  analyze  here  the  relative  merits 
and  influences  of  English  and  Continental 
dramatists,  it  is  noteworthy  to  our  subject 
that  the  contemporary  influence  of  European 
upon  American  drama  and  dramatic  criticism 
resolves  itself  —  through  various  channels  of 
genius  —  into  the  dominant  influence  of  Ibsen. 
Now  the  technique  of  every  master  is  adapted 
to  his  message.  No  artist  can  be  subtracted 
from  or  superadded  to,  what  he  has  to  say; 
and  the  talisman  of  the  master  artist  is  per- 

98 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

feet  adaptation  of  means  to  end.  To  a  thou 
sand  prophets,  as  many  arts  of  prophecy. 
When,  therefore,  Ibsen  is  designated  by  the 
critical  as  the  dramatic  master  for  us  in  Amer 
ica  to-day,  let  us  not  be  first  moved  to  acquies 
cence  by  the  profound  art,  the  human  daring, 
and  the  honorable  achievement  of  the  great 
Norwegian,  but  let  us  first  ask  ourselves, 
What  is  his  message?  Is  it  for  us?  And  is 
it  for  all  of  us  as  a  people?  And  if  it  be  for 
us,  if  it  be  indeed  pertinent  and  inspiring  to 
the  vision  of  our  vast  young  democracy,  let 
us  ordain  him  master,  and  rally  for  him 
disciples,  and  appropriate  the  principles  of 
his  technique,  that  his  message  may  live  on  in 
America.  But  if  it  is  not  for  us,  if  it  is  per 
tinent  only  to  the  different  conditions  and 
needs  which  gave  it  utterance  in  his  mind  and 
art,  let  us  not  ordain  him  master,  but  honor 
ing  in  him  the  dauntless  Norwegian  and  the 
sincere  artist,  imitate  only  his  daring  and  his 
sincerity,  and  go  the  way  of  our  own  vision, 
repudiating  his  domination  as  he  himself 
repudiated  the  domination  of  Shakspere 

99 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

and  all  the  Lilliputian  disciples  of  that 
giant. 

What,  then,  is  the  message  of  Ibsen?  Is 
it  not  the  suffering  of  human  pathology  — 
the  courage  to  meet  the  subtler  diseases  of 
society,  the  stoicism  to  diagnose  the  incurable 
ills  of  inheritance?  Thus  at  its  best  his 
function  as  dramatist  becomes  that  of  the  in 
formed  physician  and  surgeon,  and  the  sad 
world  his  clinic.  And  so,  with  diverse  mood 
and  accent,  reads  the  philosophy  of  his  Euro 
pean  followers.  Theirs  is  the  message,  wrung 
from  serious  hearts,  of  a  corroded  society; 
their  own  society,  its  need  of  health,  its  erotic 
and  neurasthenic  pangs.  Theirs  is  the  mes 
sage  of  overpopulation,  and  all  the  pessimism 
of  that. 

Is  such  the  predestined  message  of  our 
American  democracy?  Is  such  the  timely 
and  peculiar  appeal  of  a  drama  which  shall 
awaken  the  authentic  response  of  a  people  of 
eighty  millions  —  a  people  to  whom  the  wilder 
ness  is  still,  thank  God,  an  inspiration;  for 
whom  even  in  their  slums  the  hill-ranging 

100 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

winds  are  still  hope,  and  the  sweat  of  their 
labor  still  pledge  of  a  wholesome  futurity? 
Is  such  a  message  indeed  for  us?  Or  can 
any  technical  mastery  make  it  ours? 

But  the  art  of  these  Europeans  is  also  some 
thing  other  and  less  than  the  cry  of  a  degener 
ate  race.  For  it  is  not  the  cry  of  a  race  at  all, 
nor  of  a  people,  but  of  a  segment  of  society. 
Significant  is  this  distinction.  Not  Norway, 
nor  the  peoples  of  Europe,  cry  out  through 
Ibsen  and  his  followers;  not  those  peoples, 
whose  great  masses  are  still  peasant,  full- 
blooded,  inarticulate  as  in  the  feudal  age; 
but  the  sophisticated  strata  of  their  so-called 
upper  society,  the  modern  corroding  remains 
of  an  aristocratical  system  now  mingled  with 
bourgeoisie.  Those  strata  are  Ibsen's  hu 
manity;  their  anaemia  the  solicitude  of  his 
art.  It  is  not,  however,  simply  the  pathology 
of  Ibsen's  message,  but  also  its  restricted 
public,  which  characterizes  it.  This  arises 
out  of  the  nature  of  the  theatre  mJEurope  as 
an  established  institution  of  those  classes  — 
its  nature  as  the  conservator  and  home  of 

101 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

what  may  be  called  the  segregated  drama. 
By  the  segregated  drama  I  mean  the  drama 
considered  as  a  fine  art  for  the  Jew;  that 
drama  which,  having  its  secure  home  in  the 
court  and  municipal  theatres  of  Europe,  has 
produced  the  noblest  examples  of  modern 
dramaturgy. 

As  the  popular  alternatives  to  the  segregated 
drama  in  Europe  exist  the  cockpits,  the  bull 
fights,  and  the  cafes  chantants. 

In  America,  a  similar  distinction  has  not 
been,  until  lately,  definitely  marked.  But 
with  the  growth  of  organization  in  the  theatre 
as  a  business  it  has^  become  yearly  more  ap 
parent  that  the  chaotic  stuff  of  our  dramatic 
world  is  revolving  itself  into  two  utterly  sun 
dered  spheres :  — 

First:  The  Segregated  Drama,  based  on 
European  ideals. 

Second:  Vaudeville,  a  melange  of  amuse 
ments,  variously  adapted  from  the  drama,  the 
cafes  chantants,  and  the  cockpits. 

In  the  first,  the  drama  is  considered  as  a 
fine  art  for  the  few.  In  the  second,  the  drama 

102 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

is  considered  not  as  a  fine  art  at  all,  but  as  a 
heterogeneous  entertainment  for  the  many. 

Here  now  is  a  crucial  moment,  an  inspiring 
opportunity,  in  our  dramatic  history,  and 
hence  in  our  history  as  a  nation.  For  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other  sphere  represents,  I  be 
lieve,  the  destiny  of  American  drama.  Be 
tween  those  two  ideals  and  distinct  from  each, 
exists,  potential,  a  third  ideal  —  an  ideal 
correspondent  to  the  essential  genius  and 
the  native  opportunity  of  our  American  nation 
and  its  dramaturgy.  That  third  ideal  is  the 
Drama  of  Democracy  —  the  drama  as  a  fine 
art  for  the  many. 

A  momentous  ideal;  a  momentous  op 
portunity.  With  temperance  it  may  be  said, 
that  not  since  the  age  of  Pericles  has  there 
existed  a  communal  field  for  art  comparable 
in  possibility  to  our  own,  and  ours  is  a  field 
richer  and  vaster  in  promise,  as  America  to-day 
is,  by  science  and  inter-communication,  bound 
the  more  closely  to  the  whole  world  than  was 
ancient  Greece. 

The  drama  as  a  fine  art  for  the  many;  and 
103 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

by  "the  many"  I  mean  "the  whole  people," 
both  virtuosi  and  hoi  polloi.  JSschylus, 
Sophocles,  Aristophanes,  and  their  contempo 
rary  peers,  consummate  artists,  interpreted  an 
eager  people  to  themselves,  created  for  and  by 
their  own  works  a  whole  nation  of  dramatic 
critics,  and  infused  generations  of  shepherds, 
bankers,  and  street  gamins  with  a  judicious 
enthusiasm  for  the  fine  art  of  dramatic 
poetry. 

It  is  related  that,  during  the  enactment  of 
a  play  by  Aristophanes,  one  of  the  actors  mis 
placed  the  metrical  accent  of  his  verse  in  the 
dialogue;  whereupon  the  whole  audience  of 
thousands  rose,  as  one  man,  in  their  seats 
and  hissed  their  critical  rebuke. 

Moreover,  by  observation  at  first  hand, 
by  a  fresh  and  native  insight,  those  Greek 
dramatists  created  their  own  ideals  out  of  the 
national  consciousness  of  their  fellow-Atheni 
ans.  Compare  with  this  Catullus,  Horace,  and 
the  Augustan  Roman  poets,  who  borrowed 
their  criteria,  ready  formed,  from  the  Greeks, 
and  sought  to  foist  them  upon  their  anti- 

104 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

pathetic  countrymen.  With  the  segregated 
few  they  succeeded,  but  not  with  the  many. 
The  profanum  vulgus  went  its  way  to  the 
beast-fights  and  the  gladiators.  The  Coliseum 
is  the  monument  of  a  people  without  a  popular 
fine  art;  the  theatre  of  Dionysus  at  Athens 
a  monument  to  the  Drama  of  Democracy. 

Now,  while  too  close  an  analogy  may  not, 
of  course,  be  drawn,  yet  one  parallel  is  perti 
nent.  Our  creative  dramatists,  our  intelligent 
public  opinion,  are  guided  and  enthused  by 
European  ideals,  which,  however  admirable 
to  their  germane  conditions,  here,  when  trans 
planted  to  us,  are  at  best  a  delight  to  those 
restricted  few  whom  they  thus  educate,  while 
at  worst,  their  advocacy  by  that  few  permits 
of  one  mighty  danger  to  our  many;  namely, 
that  by  importing  a  fine  art  which  does  not,  of 
its  nature,  appeal  to  our  masses,  our  masses 
shall  remain  without  a  fine  art,  and  so  retro 
grade;  that  by  the  neglect  of  the  enlightened 
few  to  provide  our  whole  people  with  modern 
national  Theatres  of  Dionysus,  the  Coliseums 
of  the  variety  shows  shall  be  increasingly 

105 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

provided  for  them  by  the  unenlightened  as 
tuteness  of  private  enterprise. 

This  very  condition  threatens  us  now,  when 
our  people  as  a  people,  untouched  by  the  art 
or  message  of  an  Ibsen  and  Maeterlinck  (subtle 
and  noble  though  these  be),  turns  gropingly, 
and  increasingly  satisfied,  to  the  ubiquitous 
Vaudeville  Show  which  a  splendidly  organized 
business  system  provides  for  them,  ignorant 
or  uncaring  of  the  consequences  to  our  civic 
lifeV  Let  us  remember  that  theatre-goers  in 
America  are  numbered  by  the  millions  and 
tens  of  millions,  when  we  ask  ourselves: 
What  are  those  consequences  to  us,  and  to 
the  generations,  in  our  national  development  ? 

An  analysis  of  the  nature  of  Vaudeville  * 
and  its  effect  upon  the  masses  will,  I  think, 
reveabat  least  these  four  elements  vitiating 
to  the  American  native  capacity  for  a  true 
drama  of  democracy :  — 

First,  its  intermittent  appeal,  whereby  the 
Variety  Show  is  destructive  of  all  sustained 
concentration  on  the  part  of  its  audience, 

1  See  Comment  on  page  195. 
106 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

numbing  its  sense  of  logical  coherence,  aesthetic 
unity,  and  the  constructive  harmonies  of 
dramatic  action. 

Thus,  for  example,  an  audience  of  business 
men  who,  in  the  daytime,  whet  and  educate 
their  inherent  capacity  for  art  by  analyzing 
and  harmonizing  the  constructive  laws  of  com 
merce,  and  the  upbuilding  of  industry,  —  men, 
who  by  day  follow  their  joy  and  ambition  in 
the  inexorable  detection  of  the  sequence  of 
cause  and  effect,  —  these  same  men  will  per 
mit  themselves,  after  dark,  to  sit  like  so  many 
aborigines  of  Patagonia,  and  applaud  with 
vacuous  admiration  the  sequence  of  a  show 
as  logically  coherent  as  shoes  and  sealing-wax. 

Compare  with  this  form  of  amusement  a 
comedy  of  Aristophanes,  with  its  sustained 
orchestration  of  wit  and  its  gamut  of  lyric 
fun  —  a  true  fine  art  for  the  masses. 

Secondly,  its  necessary  appeal  to  average 
taste  and  minimum  critical  faculty.  Neces 
sary  it  is,  because  Vaudeville  as  a  business 
cannot  afford  to  take  risks,  and,  as  a  business, 
cannot  afford  to  be  educative  of  criticism. 

107 


THE   DRAMA   OF   DEMOCRACY 

The  broadest  basis  of  appeal,  with  least  finan 
cial  risk,1  is  its  corner-stone.  Now  average 
taste,  of  course,  is  bad  taste,  and  since  bad 
taste  in  factu  is  more  dependable  than  good 
taste  in  posse,  the  policy  of  Vaudeville  be 
comes  the  progressive  cultivation  in  the  public 
of  average  or  bad  taste,  and  the  gradual  pa 
ralysis  of  the  people's  critical  faculty. 

Thirdly,  its  pseudo-morality.  With  know 
ing  regard  for  the  prejudices  of  conventional 
ethics,  the  wares  of  its  Variety  are  advertised 
as  alike  innocent  for  sucklings  and  sinners; 
whereas,  in  actual  performance,  the  equivocal 
hint  and  the  nameless  innuendo,  by  con 
sciously  avoiding  a  legal  indecency,  are  doubly 
corrupt  by  their  hypocrisy. 

Fourth,  its  dementedness.  This  character 
istic  has  already  been  alluded  to,  but  deserves 
to  be  emphasized  as  a  distinct  element.  To 
one  who  enters  the  average  Vaudeville  house 
with  the  poise  of  a  sane  mind,  the  unwhole 
some  hysteria  of  the  performance  is  pitifully 
manifest.  The  unmeaning  haste,  the  ex- 

1  See  Comment  on  page  197. 
108 


THE    DRAMA    OF   DEMOCRACY 

aggerated  feat  of  skill,  the  baseless  mirth, 
the  overtaxed  fatigue,  are  evidences  not  of 
spontaneous  and  wholesome  revelry,  but  of 
neurasthenia. 

All  these  vitiating  elements  of  Vaudeville 
are  of  course  glossed,  and  in  part  atoned,  by 
frequent  exhibits  of  sound  powers,  flashes  of 
consummate  wit,  splendid  inventions  of  science, 
brief  revelations  of  genius;  yet  as  a  substitute 
for  a  true  drama  of  democracy,  its  results 
are  perilous  to  our  generations.  For  its  results 
are  these:  that  it  substitutes  forgetfulness  of 
civic  life  for  consciousness  of  civic  life;  in 
dividual  entertainment  for  communal  self- 
expression;  sensual  callousness  for  sensuous 
enkindlement ;  and  popular  "money- tricks" 
for  the  supreme  fine  art  of  humanity. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  the  contrasted 
works  and  public  of  the  segregated  drama, 
which  looks  to  modern  European  dramaturgy 
for  its  inspiration  and  technique.  There 
exists  also  amidst  us,  to  be  sure,  a  more  or 
less  popular  drama,  with  no  special  ideal  save 
that  of  supplying  the  histrionic  wants  of  stars, 

109 


THE   DRAMA   OF   DEMOCRACY 

or  the  commercial  needs  of  managers,  and 
this  largely  fills  the  theatres  in  the  "  legitimate" 
business ;  but  as  this  has  no  other  basic  motive 
or  message,  it  is  necessarily  ephemeral  and, 
to  our  present  discussion,  negligible. 

The  segregated  drama,  however,  is  of  great 
importance.  It  has  a  definite  and  —  within 
narrowed  bounds  —  a  lofty  ideal.  With  in 
creasing  revulsion  against  the  banality  of 
the  Variety  Shows,  the  very  aim  of  its  being  is 
differentiation  from  the  ideals  of  the  masses. 
It  is  a  fine  art  for  the  few.  In  Europe,  in 
dubitably,  the  salvation  of  the  drama  has  lain 
in  segregation;  thereby  it  has  maintained  its 
high  level  of  achievement.  From  Racine  to 
Rostand,  from  Lessing  to  Hauptmann,  the 
segregated  theatres  of  France  and  Germany^ 
have  produced  a  succession  of  excelling  poet- 
artists. 

Reasoning  from  this  analogy,  the  intelligent 
in  America  have  set  their  hopes  in  a  like 
segregation,  to  this  end  appropriating  those 
European  masters  and  their  art.  In  this 
expectation,  they  neglect  two  important  con- 

110 


THE   DRAMA   OF    DEMOCRACY 

siderations :  First,  that  the  success  of  that  art 
is  based  upon  the  original  incentives  of  those 
masters,  and  not  upon  any  qualities  of  that 
art  which  may  be  imitated.  Secondly,  that 
even  if  successfully  imported,  that  foreign 
art,  with  its  segregative  ideals,  can  never  hope 
to  fill  the  unique  opportunity  of  a  drama  which 
shall  satisfy  the  native  need  and  capacity  of 
the  American  people  for  self-development  in 
fine  art.  Alluring,  then,  —  even  tempting,  — 
as  the  segregative  ideal  may  be  to  the  few, 
permanent  and  productive  as  its  function  will 
always  be  in  human  society,  it  is,  nevertheless, 
I  believe,  not  for  us  the  destined  ideal,  not  for 
us  the  appropriate  goal  of  the  drama  of  our 
American  democracy. 

That  a  fine  art  for  the  many  is  a  practical 
ideal  has  been  proved  by  its  realization  in  at 
least  two  historical  eras.  The  dramatic  works 
of  Marlowe,  Shakspere,  Webster,  and  their 
inspired  contemporaries  at  once  created,  and 
were  created  by,  audiences  with  receptivity  to 
the  large  imagination  and  the  sonorous  utter 
ance  of  those  Elizabethans.  In  more  corn- 
Ill 


THE   DRAMA    OF   DEMOCRACY 

plete  measure,  as  they  were  the  product  of 
more  democratical  conditions,  the  works  of 
the  great  Greek  dramatists  brought  into  being 
a  popular  fine  art,  which  has  been  the  admira 
tion  and  the  envy  of  the  segregated  artists  in 
all  ages. 

In  our  own  time,  in  the  cognate  field  of  music, 
we  have  beheld  the  analogous  birth  and  growth 
of  an  universal  fine  art,  through  the  vision  and 
will  of  a  single  artist.  Less  than  fifty  years 
ago,  the  Wagnerian  opera  had  neither  theatres, 
audiences,  nor  interpreters ;  its  technique  was 
scoffed  at;  its  practicality  was  denied,  its 
possibilities  of  popular  appeal  were  ignored 
or  ridiculed.  We  know  what  it  is  to-day. 
But  what  Wagner  accomplished  for  the  drama 
of  song  and  musical  motif  may  equally  be 
accomplished  for  the  drama  of  speech  and  the 
motif  of  verse,  and  with  far  deeper  effect  upon 
the  self-development  of  our  whole  people,  in 
asmuch  as  the  spoken  drama  may  enter,  not 
as  a  beautiful  thing  apart,  but  as  a  forming 
influence,  a  critical  and  self-revealing  inspira 
tion,  into  the  very  sources  of  our  national  life. 

112 


THE   DRAMA    OF   DEMOCRACY 

To  compare  the  scope  and  relative  appeal 
of  the  segregated  with  the  democratical  ideal 
in  fine  art,  compare  the  Don  Giovanni  of 
Mozart  with  the  Siegfried  of  Wagner.  Com 
pare  the  delineation  of  that  distracted  soul, 
Halvard  Solness,  the  Master  Builder,  with  the 
delineation  of  Macbeth;  the  character  draw 
ing  of  Oscar  Wilde's  Lord  Windermere,  with 
that  of  Falstaff;  the  Peleas  and  Melisande 
of  Maeterlinck  with  the  Orestes  and  Electra 
of  Sophocles.  Here  are  the  master  drawings 
of  masters  —  but  masters  in  two  distinct 
methods  and  aims.  The  distinction,  in  art, 
is  one  between  individualism  and  universalism, 
between  naturalism  and  idealism.  Ibsen, 
Oscar  Wilde,  Maeterlinck  depict  individuals, 
and  types  of  a  segment  of  society ;  Shakspere 
and  Sophocles  images  of  all  humanity. 

But  is,  then,  this  distinction  a  dead  issue? 
Does  modernity  necessarily  imply  individu 
alism  and  naturalism?  Are  the  dramatic 
poets  of  to-day  and  to-morrow  never  more  to 
carry  on  and  upward  the  tradition  and  the 
message  of  an  universal  vision?  And  is 
i  113 


THE  DRAMA   OF   DEMOCRACY 

poetry  for  the  masses,  as  some  of  our  modern 
prophets  have  chanted,  indeed  as  dead  as 
the  door-nail  of  the  proverb  ?  Patience  !  Many 
such  door-nails  rivet  the  coffin  of  scepticism. 
There  is  the  horizon  of  a  theatrical  season  and 
there  is  the  horizon  of  the  centuries.  And 
from  the  latter  serene  horizon  looms  the  un- 

v^  ^      vj*Jt    i^AA-Ar      W^AjL- 

harvested  \ideal  of  a  new  drama  for  our  de 
mocracy.  '  ^nrvv^^-f 

^ 

A  new  drama,  for  though  of  necessity  its 
main  roots  will  strike  for  nutriment  deep  into 
English  tradition  and  language,  and  permeate 
the  subsoil  of  the  centuries  as  far  as  the  age 
of  Pericles,  yet  trunk  and  branch  shall  spread 
themselves  over  the  nation  as  indigenous  and 
beneficent  as  our  American  elms. 

A  drama,  it  must  be,  adapted  to  a  people 
of  many  millions:  many  millions,  but  fused 
by  the  American  Spirit  —  one  nation ;  their 
prairies,  their  mountains,  their  vast  river 
valleys,  as  well  as  the  infinite  meanings  of  their 
cities,  it  shall  humanly  interpret  and  make 
vocal  to  them  and  their  posterity.  Its  drama 
tists,  peering  through  imagination  into  the  past, 

114 


THE    DRAMA   OF   DEMOCRACY 

the  present,  the  future,  shall  strive  (as  Keats 
says)  "to  see  as  a  god  sees,"  and  make  those 
images  their  Dramatis  Personse.  And  espe 
cially  when  they  look  into  the  past,  they  shall 
see  with  their  own  eyes,  in  no  archaic  spirit, 
but  to  reveal  its  perennial  meanings  to  their 
modern  time.  Thus  they  will  create  char 
acters,  corresponding  in  sculpture  to  the  ideal 
groups  of  a  Phidias  as  opposed  to  the  gold 
smith  portraiture  of  a  Cellini.  These  they 
will  delineate  with  large  simplicity  and  passion, 
as  befits  a  fine  art  for  the  many.  No  longer 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brown,  Smith,  Robinson,  with 
all  their  idiosyncrasies  superfluous  to  a  na 
tional  art,  shall  walk  the  boards,  but,  instead, 
living  symbols  of  our  living  world,  so  re-created 
in  imagination  as  to  move  and  breathe  like 
visible  gods  and  demi-gods  of  our  modernity; 
beings  as  simply  understandable  to  our  Ameri 
can  masses  as  the  Greek-stage  Zeus  and  Aga 
memnon  were  to  the  Athenians;  characters 
as  familiar  to  the  modern  man  in  the  audience 
as  the  great  forces  of  labor  and  capital,  com 
petition  and  graft  and  reform,  of  which  he 

115 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

reads  in  his  newspaper  —  now  tangibly  set 
before  him  as  distinct  and  breathing  images, 
which  shall  ever  after  serve  to  interpret  for 
him — himself  and  the  life  of  his  nation. 
"Symbols,"  I  have  said,  yet  the  dramatic  poet 
of  democracy  will  not,  I  think,  allegorize; 
neither  will  he  so  much  symbolize,  as  see  and 
create  in  the  large. 

Dramatic  poet  he  must  be,  for  in  the  very 
nature  of  its  ideal  the  drama  of  democracy 
will  be  a  poetic  drama.  Not  a  revival  of  old 
forms,  not  an  emulation  of  Elizabethan  blank 
verse,  but  a  fresh  imagining  and  an  original 
utterance  of  modern  motives  which  are  as 
yet  unimagined  and  unexpressed.  Not  a  re 
vival,  but  a  new  birth;  not  a  restoration,  but  a 
renascence  of  poetic  drama.  No  bounds  can 
be  set  prophetically  to  the  particular  forms 
of  its  expression :  those  will  be  determined  by 
its  dramatists.  There  are  those  to-day  who 
see  no  futurity  for  dramatic  art  save  in  prose ; 
yet  such  are,  I  think,  enamoured  of  a  natural 
istic  ideal.  For  myself,  varied  and  fascinat 
ing  as  I  find  the  gamut  of  prose,  yet  in  the 

116 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

largeness  and  the  deep  passion  of  our  op 
portunity  I  can  see  no  form  of  utterance  so 
appropriate  to  that  world-drama  of  America 
as  those  natural  cadences  of  emotion  in  speech 
which  are  allied  to  music.  A  fresh  study  of 
the  laws  of  those  cadences,  as  adaptable  to  the 
purposes  of  modern  poetic  drama  and  its 
popular  appeal,  will  result,  I  believe,  in  a  new 
harmonious  complexity  of  form  in  verse  and 
rhythm. 

But  whether  expressed  in  prose  or  verse, 
the  message  of  the  drama  of  our  democracy 
is  equally  important  with  its  form.  That 
message  will  be  the  message  not  of  an  Old 
World  ennui,  the  fruit  of  overpopulation;  but 
of  a  New  World  optimism,  based  in  the  heri 
tage  of  the  land  itself. 

On  the  boards  of  its  theatre  the  spirit  of 
Comedy  shall  be  master,  and  shift  with  twin 
kling  eyes  his  tragic  masks.  There  not  merely 
the  sad  aspiring  of  a  race  shall  speak  in  beauty ; 
huge  Satire  and  the  vast  guffaw  of  Folly  will 
chant  harmonious;  shrill  Wit,  twanging  a 
lightning  bow  of  verse,  shall  rattle  his  barbs 

117 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

of  melodious  mockery;  and  Reason,  standing 
in  the  wings,  will  smile  his  sweet,  serene  smile 
philosophical.  Thus  shall  that  Comic  Spirit, 
which  is  twin  of  the  American  Spirit,  be  lifted 
to  the  large  plane  of  fine  art,  and  illuminating 
the  average  American  to  himself  raise  thereby 
his  mirth  to  a  finer  dignity. 

With  the  new  drama  of  Democracy,  then, 
will  arise  a  divergent  dramatic  technique,  a 
native  appeal  and  message,  a  new  and  nobler 
art  of  impersonation,1  and  —  above  all  — 
to  administer  and  develop  its  vast  function, 
a  new  theatrical  institution,  with  basic  liberty 
and  permanent  security  for  its  growth. 

Manifestly,  all  these  things  are  not  as  yet; 
the  drama  as  a  popular  fine  art  does  not  exist ; 
existing  conditions  cannot  foster  it;  actors  of 
to-day  are  not  schooled  to  interpret  it;  the 
modern  public  does  not  demand  it.  These 
are  the  easy  comments  of  the  observer  of 
things  as  they  are.  To  whom  the  observer 
of  things  as  they  may  well  be,  shall  reply: 
Of  course  the  drama  as  a  popular  fine  art  does 

1  See  Comment  on  page  198. 
118 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

not  exist ;  of  course  existing  conditions  cannot 
foster  it ;  of  course  actors  are  not  schooled  to 
it ;  of  course  the  public  does  not  demand  it. 
Since,  however,  we  have  clearly  beheld  the 
vision  of  such  a  drama,  and  seen  that  it  is 
beautiful,  and  since  all  those  things  which  are 
not  yet  are  necessary  for  the  embodiment  of  that 
vision,  of  course,  therefore,  we  will  create  them, 
and  those  things  shall  be. 

Patience,  once  more.  A  day  —  a  decade 
—  is  not  destiny.  Why,  in  our  drama,  — 
without  moving  our  little  fingers  either  for 
investigation  or  for  remedy,  —  why  do  we  ex 
pect  that  reform  and  rectitude  of  conditions 
which,  in  banking  and  insurance  and  our 
legislatures,  we  strive  for  strenuously  in  vain  ? 
If  I  have  proffered  to  you  here  a  credo  instead 
of  an  accomplishment,  it  is  because  it  has 
seemed  worth  while  to  communicate  a  faith, 
which  only  time  and  collaboration  of  desire 
can  fully  substantiate. 

We  must  take  time,  —  but  first  we  must 
take  action.  In  the  path  of  the  prediction  I 
have  made,  obstacles  are  intrenched,  seem- 

119 


THE    DRAMA    OF    DEMOCRACY 

ingly  insuperable.  Beyond  them  rises,  splen 
did,  the  drama  of  democracy.  Let  us  be 
swift  to  face  those  obstacles,  wise  to  analyze 
them,  patient  to  resist  them,  ruthless  to  re 
move  them.  And  when  we  have  triumphed, 
strong,  then,  and  inspired  let  us  be  to  build 
beyond  them. 

In  the  gladness  of  these  hopes,  these  de 
terminations,  it  is  pleasant  to  recur  to  the 
thoughts  of  that  quiet  seer,  whom  at  first  I 
quoted,  and  to  feel,  through  divers  times  and 
responsibilities,  the  continuity  of  an  American 
ideal.  Himself,  serene  in  his  New  England 
orchard,  the  least  dramatic  of  poets,  to  whom 
in  his  time  the  world  of  the  theatre  was  a  realm 
uncharted  as  the  seacoast  of  Bohemia,  yet  are 
his  words  to-day  a  blazonry  and  a  call  to  the 
drama  of  our  democracy.  "Brothers  and 
friends,"  not  only  in  the  technique  of  our 
dramatic  art,  but  also  in  the  pioneer  work  of 
upbuilding  its  institution,  henceforth  "we 
will  walk  on  our  own  feet,  we  will  work  with 
our  own  hands,  we  will  speak  our  own  minds" 


120 


THE  DRAMATIST  AS  CITIZEN 


THE  DRAMATIST  AS   CITIZEN 

IN  a  literal  sense,  a  citizen  is  one  who 
owes  allegiance  to  his  government  and, 
reciprocally,  is  entitled  to  protection  from 
it.  In  our  own  county,  such  allegiance  com 
prises  the  duty  and  right  of  the  male  citizen 
to  vote  at  the  polls,  to  fight  —  if  called  upon 
—  in  war,  and  of  all  citizens  to  pay  taxes  as 
legally  assessed,  and  to  obey  the  statutes. 

In  that  restrictive  sense,  the  government  of 
the  United  States  accords  citizenship  to  many 
millions. 

But  in  a  larger  sense,  a  citizen  is  one  who 
owes  to  his  fellow-countrymen  all  public  ser 
vice  of  his  special  capacity  and,  reciprocally, 
is  entitled  to  opportunity  from  public  opinion 
to  perform  such  service.  That  special  capac 
ity  will  chiefly  depend  on  his  vocation  in  the 
community. 

In  this  larger  sense,  public  opinion  in  the 
United  States  recognizes  men  and  women  of 

123 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS    CITIZEN 

special    capacity    in    numerous    vocations    as 
"leading   citizens,"    or   "public   servants." 

Traditionally,  certain  vocations  are  more 
widely  looked  to  than  others  as  sources  of 
public  service.  Such,  for  example,  are  the 
vocations  of  the  statesman,  the  minister,  the 
physician.  To  take  rank  in  these  callings  it 
is  necessary  for  a  man  to  succeed  not  merely 
in  the  labors  of  self-seeking,  but  of  altruism. 
Of  the  statesman,  or  the  minister,  or  the 
physician,  it  is  demanded  —  at  the  risk  of 
public  stigma  —  that  he  shall  serve  the  good 
of  society.  This  demand  is  just,  for  it  is 
proportioned  to  the  public  influence,  for  good 
or  for  evil,  inherent  in  the  nature  of  his  pro 
fession.  By  the  nature  of  their  vocations 
the  physician  and  the  minister  hold  within 
their  influence  the  physical  and  moral  health 
of  communities ;  the  statesman  sways  the  life 
and  destiny  of  a  nation.  Therefore  society 
has  safeguarded  those  vocations  themselves 
by  establishing  certain  tests  and  standards 
of  fitness  for  their  incumbents.  At  the  same 
time,  society  has  provided  opportunity  for 

124 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

aspirants  to  those  vocations  to  fit  themselves 
for  meeting  those  tests  and  standards. 

Thus,  for  example,  as  the  diploma  and 
state  license  safeguard  the  practice  of  medicine, 
so  do  medical  schools  give  opportunity  for 
meeting  the  tests  and  standards  set  by  the 
diploma  and  license. 

Now  the  specific  standards  set  for  the 
practice  of  medicine  result  from  the  general 
attitude  of  public  opinion  toward  the  pro 
fession  of  the  physician.  And  so  it  is  with  all 
professions.  In  the  last  analysis,  professional 
standards  originate  in  public  opinion. 

Considering,  therefore,  the  extraordinary 
public  influence,  for  good  or  for  evil,  inherent 
in  the  dramatist's  profession,  is  it  not  pertinent 
—  is  it  not  timely  —  to  inquire  into  the  atti 
tude  of  public  opinion  toward  the  drama, 
with  a  view  to  ascertaining  what  standards 
of  responsibility  and  efficiency,  if  any,  de 
termine  the  dramatist's  practice  of  his  pro 
fession  ? 

First,  then,  how  far  does  public  opinion 
realize  the  extraordinary  public  influence,  for 

125 


f 
THE    DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 


good  or  for  evil,  of  the  dramatist's  profession 
Secondly,  how  far  is  public  opinion  ready 
to  accord  to  the  dramatist's  profession  equal 
opportunities  with  other  professions  of  leader 
ship  ? 

Thoroughgoing  answers  to  these  questions 
would  account,  I  think,  for  the  status  and 
standards  of  the  dramatist's  profession  in  our 
country  to-day.  In  the  present  paper,  I  can 
but  suggest  a  few  paths  of  thought  which  I 
hope  may  lead  others  far  better  qualified  than 
I  to  detect  and  marshal  the  significances  of  a 
subject  among  the  most  neglected  and  impor 
tant  of  our  time. 

"Neglected"  —  a  neglected  subject?  Have 
I  not  made  a  questionable  assertion  ?  Is  there 
a  single  other  subject  which  consumes  as 
much  wood-pulp  per  annum  in  the  columns  of 
our  newspapers  as  the  subject  of  the  theatre  ? 
Is  there  a  single  other  denizen  of  the  side- 
fences  —  not  excepting  Sapolio  —  as  ubiqui 
tous  as  the  play-poster?  Into  the  Pullman 
windows  of  the  Sunset  Limited,  it  cries  aloud 
from  the  wilderness.  Even  the  indigent  ash- 

126 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

barrel  shares  its  fame.  Wherever  two  and 
two  are  gathered  together,  the  topic  of  the 
theatre  is  the  very  ointment  and  Omega  Oil 
of  conversation.  Is,  then,  the  subject  of  the 
drama  neglected? 

In  one  sense,  no;  decidedly,  no.  The 
drama,  as  a  social  and  commercial  fact,  is 
everywhere  superficially  discussed.  But  the 
meaning  of  the  drama  as  a  contemporaneous 
civic  force  is  rarely  imagined  or  considered. 
Plays  and  players,  as  wares  of  the  theatre, 
are  wonderfully  advertised;  but  the  theatre 
itself,  as  perhaps  the  mightiest  potentiality  for 
civic  enlightenment  and  education  in  America, 
is  almost  nowhere  studied  and  criticised  with 
a  view  to  its  higher  status  as  an  institution. 
Its  actual  status  is  simply  accepted  as  in 
evitable,  and  all  discussions  of  the  problems 
and  progress  of  the  drama  are  directed  toward 
what  the  drama  can  do  under  the  circum 
stances.  There  is  no  concerted  rational  plan 
to  change  the  circumstances  themselves  for  the 
better. 

Consequently,  from  decade  to  decade,  this 
127 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

or  that  player,  or  dramatist,  or  theatrical 
producer,  according  to  his  special  efforts, 
is  the  object  of  praise  or  blame  from  public 
opinion,  while  the  basic  commercial  conditions 
of  the  institution,  which  has  brought  player 
and  dramatist  and  theatrical  producer  into 
being,  are  simply  ignored.  Under  these  cir 
cumstances,  of  course,  progress  in  the  drama 
is  limited  to  the  basic  conditions  of  the  theatre 
as  an  institution  of  private  speculative  business. 
Now  an  institution  of  speculative  business 
is  not  the  same  thing  as  an  institution  of 
civic  enlightenment.  That  platitude  has  been 
rammed  home  for  American  citizens  to  their 
cost,  in  cases  of  more  than  one  great  business 
enterprise  gone  awry ;  as  witness  the  insurance 
investigations.  That  same  platitude  is  being 
ignored  by  American  citizens  in  the  case  of 
the  theatre,  but  with  this  important  difference : 
intelligent  investigation  of  the  insurance  com 
panies  revealed  pernicious  conditions  which 
touched  only  the  vest  pockets  of  the  people. 
Intelligent  investigation  of  the  theatres  will 
reveal  pernicious  conditions  which  strike  deeper 

128 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS    CITIZEN 

—  into  the  very  hearts  and  minds  and  souls 
of  the  people. 

Again,  have  I  made  a  questionable  assertion  ? 
Or  am  I,  contrary  to  your  probable  opinion 
of  me,  about  to  wield  the  proverbial  muck 
rake  in  a  new  barnyard  ?  Neither,  I  assure 
you.  Do  I,  then,  mean  that  the  controllers 
of  the  theatres  in  America  are  shamefully 
abusing  a  public  trust?  Not  at  all.  They 
have  received  no  public  trust.  They  have 
no  such  thing  to  abuse.  Do  I  allude,  then, 
to  militant  business  combinations  in  the 
theatre  ?  —  to  syndicates  and  anti-syndicates  ? 
No,  still  less,  for  these  are  of  very  little  impor 
tance  to  our  subject.  Still,  I  have  alluded  to 
"pernicious  conditions"  in  the  theatre:  to 
what  conditions,  then,  do  I  refer? 

In  Lewis  Carroll's  "Through  the  Looking 
Glass,"  Alice  desires  to  reach  a  particular 
viewpoint  on  a  distant  hill.  But  every  time 
she  attempts  to  make  toward  it,  she  walks 
instead  into  her  own  doorway.  Therefore, 
explains  the  author,  "she  thought  she  would 
try  the  plan  of  walking  in  the  opposite  direc- 
K  129 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

tion.  It  succeeded  beautifully.  She  had  not 
been  walking  a  minute  before  she  found  her 
self  full  in  sight  of  the  hill  she  had  been  so  long 
aiming  at."  To  reach  my  particular  view 
point,  I  also  will  resort  to  this  Looking-glass 
method,  in  hopes  of  reaching  —  by  a  process 
of  reversal  —  the  desirable  hilltop,  with  a 
bird's-eye  view  of  my  meaning. 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  friends  and  citizens, 
it  gives  me  deep  concern  —  but  it  is  needful 
in  the  interest  of  truth  and  the  subject  in  hand 
—  to  read  to  you  the  following  extracts,  all  of 
which  I  have  sedulously  copied  from  To-mor 
row  Evening's  Comet :  — 

SUDDEN  CATACLYSM  IN  THE  WORLDS    OF 
SCHOLARSHIP    AND    ART 

Latest  News  from  the  Colleges 

The  Universities  of  Harvard,  Yale,  Columbia,  and 
Princeton  [and  it  is  also  rumored,  all  other  American 
Universities  besides]  have  simultaneously  undergone 
an  internal  revolution.  They  have  suddenly  become 
deprived  of  all  endowment.  In  each  case,  the  over 
seers  have  resigned-  The  Corporation  has  deposed  the 

130 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

President,  reorganized  as  a  joint  stock  company,  and 
appointed  the  College  Bursar,  who  owns  the  majority 
of  the  stock,  as  General  Manager  of  the  newly  formed 
"  University  Variety  and  Amusement  Company,"  by 
which  livelier  title  the  students  now  hail  their  ancient 
Alma  Mater.  Owing  to  the  revolution  in  the  treasury, 
most  of  the  professors  and  their  assistants  have  been 
dismissed.  The  more  progressive  individualists,  how 
ever,  have  been  retained,  to  collaborate  with  the  Glee 
Club  and  the  Varsity  Eleven  in  devising  a  general 
elective  course  of  such  needful  popularity  and  diversion 
as  shall  assure  to  the  students  their  "money's  worth," 
prevent  the  ancestral  halls  from  being  deserted,  and 
keep  the  Company's  stock  above  par.  It  is  reported 
that  the  combined  efforts  of  the  Varsity  quarter-back, 
the  Glee  Club  tenor,  and  the  Professor  of  Hellenic 
Gymnastics  have  already  been  rewarded  with  unex 
ampled  ovations. 

News  from  the  Public  Schools 

It  was  to-day  decided,  by  vote  of  the  Municipal 
Boards  of  Education  in  all  American  cities,  and  ratified 
by  the  Mayors  thereof,  to  withdraw  all  municipal  funds 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  Public  School  System.  This 
progressive  decision  was  reached  after  five  minutes' 

131 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS    CITIZEN 

conference  with  a  notable  body  of  philosophers,  who 
conclusively  proved  that  Competition  is  a  law  of  nature, 
and  therefore  all  institutions  which  tend  artificially  to 
check  its  natural  course  in  human  communities  should 
be  abolished.  Since  municipal  endowment  undoubtedly 
constitutes  such  an  artificial  check,  henceforth  the 
Public  Schools  of  America  will  be  conducted  on  pure 
business  principles,  embodying  the  natural  law  of  com 
mercial  competition.  Since,  moreover,  statistics  show 
that  school  children  in  America  number  several  millions 
of  souls,  the  School  Boards  are  promised  a  pretty  rake- 
off  by  the  philosophers. 

Latest  News  from  the  Art  Museums 

The  Metropolitan  Museum  of  New  York,  the  Boston 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  the  Chicago  Art  Museum  [and 
likewise,  it  is  rumored,  all  other  endowed  institutions 
of  art  in  America],  having  unanimously  decided  that 
art  and  artists  should  be  dealt  with  "democratically," 
have  henceforth  determined  to  refuse  all  patronage  from 
wealthy  citizens  and  so-called  "lovers  of  art,"  and  to 
make  their  only  appeal  direct  to  the  taste  and  standards 
of  the  people.  This  decision  was  reached  after  con 
ferring  with  the  same  ubiquitous  body  of  philosophers, 
who  succeeded  in  inculcating  their  following  favorite 

132 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS    CITIZEN 

maxims:    "Let  art  stand  on  its  own  legs,"  and  "The 
people  know  what  they  want  anyway." 

The  latest  paintings  hung,  under  the  new  unen 
dowed  regime,  are  said  to  present  a  noteworthy  con 
trast  to  the  works  of  Da  Vinci,  Velasquez,  Turner, 
Corot,  Innes,  Fuller,  Winslow  Homer,  and  their  ilk. 

Latest   Items :    Miscellaneous 

1.  A  box-office  was  installed  to-day  in  the  Astor 
Library,  New  York. 

2.  The  parishioners  of  Trinity  Church,  Boston,  have 
voted  to  pay  no  more  money  for  the  support  of  regu 
lar  services.    Instead,  the  parish  has  reorganized  as  a 
corporate  enterprise,  admission  will  be  charged  at  the 
church  doors,  and  laymen  will  compete  in  the  pulpit 
for  a  share  in  the  gross  receipts. 

3.  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie,  realizing  that  the  Carnegie 
Institute    at    Washington    conduces    only    to    the    ad 
vancement  of  pure  science  and  human  happiness,  but 
not  to  dividends,  has  withdrawn   his    support  perma 
nently  from  that  institution. 

Such  are  some  of  the  more  significant  tidings 
derived  from  that  inspired  source,  To-morrow's 
Comet.  From  still  another  column  of  that 
same  newspaper  I  have  copied  one  longer 

133 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS    CITIZEN 

excerpt,  which  is  perhaps  even  as  revolutionary 
in  character  as  the  preceding  items.  It  reads 
as  follows :  — 

THEATRICAL  PROSPECT  AND  RETROSPECT 

Reviewing  the  present  theatrical  situation,  it  seems 
but  yesterday  that  we  in  America  were  walking  in 
mediaeval  darkness  and  superstition.  Let  us,  for  a 
moment,  briefly  set  forth  the  status  of  the  theatre  in  our 
country  to-day,  that  we  may  compare  it,  in  recollection, 
with  its  status  of  yesterday. 

In  the  first  place,  to-day,  in  every  important  city  of 
the  land,  there  is  erected,  at  a  convenient  central  point 
in  the  community,  an  ample  and  beautiful  building, 
capable  of  seating  an  appropriate  proportion  of  the 
population.  This  building,  by  the  simple  grandeur  of 
its  architecture,  is  seen  at  first  glance  to  be  the  perma 
nent  home  of  a  vital  civic  institution :  an  institution  vital 
not  merely  to  changing  seasons  of  a  cult  of  play-goers, 
but  to  the  continuous  generations  of  citizens.  This  is 
immediately  evident  to  the  casual  observer  by  the  fact 
that  the  only  other  public  buildings  comparable  to  it, 
in  solemnity  and  permanence  of  design,  are  the  Court 
House  and  the  City  Hall  [or  Capitol],  with  which  it  is 
architecturally  grouped. 

134 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS    CITIZEN 

This  municipal  building  is  the  Theatre :  not  Jones's 
theatre,  nor  Rosenbaum's,  nor  Robinson's,  but  the 
Theatre:  the  house  of  the  conscious  life  of  a  free 
community.  Here,  foremost,  are  focussed  the  highest 
efforts  of  all  artists.  Here,  in  visible  symbol  for  the 
thronging  people,  the  sculptor  has  recorded  in  stone 
and  bronze  the  noblest  traditions  of  the  people's  life : 
their  civic  leaders,  among  whom  are  seen,  harmonious, 
their  statesmen,  their  artists,  their  soldiers,  their  scientific 
inventors  and  philosophers  —  the  liberators  of  men, 
gazing  on  whose  perennial  forms  the  meanest  of  the 
crowd  at  their  pedestals  may  hope  one  day  so  to  be 
beautifully  recorded.  Here  the  artist  painter,  collabo 
rating  with  the  dramatist  in  a  new  technique,  devotes 
his  craftsmanship  to  the  creation  of  new  stage-settings, 
upbuilding  fresh  traditions  in  his  art  by  permanent 
masterpieces,  beside  which  the  bric-a-brac  wings  and 
drops  of  yesterday  show  like  the  ephemeral  makeshifts 
of  children;  here,  too,  he  competes  with  his  fellow- 
artists  for  the  honor  of  executing  the  permanent  frescos 
which  add  a  lighter  loveliness  to  the  solemn  spans  of 
the  auditorium.  Here  the  musical  composer  correlates 
his  special  art  with  that  of  the  painter,  and  subordinates 
it  to  the  objects  of  dramaturgy.  Here  the  dramatist, 
the  focal  artist  of  this  focal  art  of  the  community,  com- 

135 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS    CITIZEN 

petes  with  his  fellow-dramatists  in  executing,  for  the 
selective  approval  of  his  peers,  dramas  which  shall  most 
splendidly  express,  by  passion,  imagination,  beauty, 
and  delight,  the  vital  significances  of  the  people's 
history,  —  past,  present,  and  prophetic. 

Here  the  actor,  disciplined  in  the  old  and  new  tradi 
tions  of  the  play,  chosen  by  competition  with  his  fellow- 
actors,  by  standards  of  native  insight,  experience,  adapt 
ability,  excellence  in  movement,  pantomime,  gesture, 
eloquence,  speech,  embodies  the  passion,  imagination, 
beauty,  and  delight  of  the  dramatist's  conceptions. 

Here  other  technicians,  in  arts  which  yesterday  were 
latent  or  unconceived,  —  the  masker,  the  tapicer,  the 
leader  of  pantomime  and  dance,  the  master  of  lights 
and  disappearances,  —  ply  their  expert  crafts,  like  prac 
tised  members  of  an  orchestra,  under  the  viewless  baton 
of  the  theatrical  director. 

Here,  most  of  all,  —  the  object  and  the  instigator  of 
these  combined  efforts  of  artists,  —  the  audience  holds 
its  civic  ritual. 

Is  it  not  strange  that,  for  more  than  two  thousand 
years,  the  communal  desire  of  occidental  peoples  should 
have  dispersed  itself  in  factions,  and  found  no  single 
harmonizing  instrument  to  express  itself,  until  —  in 
the  evolution  of  the  American  democracy  —  the  theatre 

136 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

once  more,  as  in  ancient  Greece,  expressed  the  oneness 
in  will  and  character  of  a  nation  ? 

Yet  it  is  not  strange,  for,  during  at  least  a  thousand 
of  those  years,  one  vital  half  of  human  nature  and  of 
national  life,  the  religious  instinct,  expressed  itself 
through  the  great  organ  of  the  church,  while  the  civic 
half  split  and  raged  in  many  factions.  But  at  last  in 
America,  in  the  twentieth  century,  when  the  church 
itself  had  become  moribund,  split  by  many  sects 
and  schisms,  and  essentially  unadapted  to  express  the 
unity  and  variety  of  national  consciousness,  and  while 
the  national  consciousness  of  the  democracy  itself  was 
becoming  enlarged  and  uplifted  by  an  unprecedented 
impulse  of  civic  pride  and  regeneration,  the  true 
potentialities  of  the  theatre,  long  dormant,  were  realized 
by  the  leaders  of  public  opinion. 

These  leaders  then  perceived  that  in  the  nature  of 
the  drama  itself  there  lay  ready  to  their  hands  a  form 
and  type  of  expression  adapted  to  harmonize  religious 
impulse  with  civic  growth ;  to  give  to  national  progress 
vital  and  visible  symbols.  But  these  leaders  also 
perceived  that  this  potentiality  of  the  drama  could  never 
be  realized  until  the  theatre  —  the  drama's  communal 
instrument — should  be  dedicated  to  public,  not  private, 
ends.  This  light  was  slow  to  break  upon  the  minds 

137 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

of  those  leaders.  When,  at  last,  however,  its  full 
meaning  dawned,  then —  almost  as  with  the  passing 
of  night — there  was  commenced,  quietly,  unostenta 
tiously,  inevitably,  that  reformation  in  the  status  of  the 
playhouse  which  has  converted  our  theatres  into  ca 
thedrals  of  communal  delight,  and  our  dramas  into 
rituals  of  civic  aspiration. 

Now  in  reality  the  theatres  belong  to  the  people. 

In  some  instances,  wealthy  citizens  of  the  common 
wealth  have  presented  to  the  city  the  building,  with  a 
maintenance  fund  in  perpetuity,  and  so  perpetuated 
their  own  fame,  like  that  Rufus  Holconius  of  Pompeii, 
whose  gift  of  a  theatre  to  his  city  has  conserved  his 
name  in  the  ashes  of  two  thousand  years.  In  other 
instances,  the  churches  have  cooperated  with  civic 
organizations  to  put  the  institution  of  the  theatre  upon 
a  basis  more  nearly  corresponding  to  that  of  the 
Athenian  theatre  of  Pericles  than  that  of  any  other 
prototype.  In  still  other  instances,  the  municipality 
itself,  through  channels  analogous  to  those  of  the  pub 
lic  school  system,  has  authorized  the  expenditure  of 
public  funds  for  the  building  and  perpetual  endow 
ment  of  its  theatre.  In  other  cases,  the  State  has 
cooperated  with  the  universities  toward  this  end. 
In  still  other  cases,  significant  organizations  of  leading 

138 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

citiz  ns,  such  as  the  National  Institute  of  Arts  and 
Letters,  have  stood  sponsors  for  raising  and  establishing 
the  needful  foundation  fund.  In  a  single  instance, 
the  Federal  Government  itself  has  established  a  thea 
tre  of  national  primacy  at  Washington.  In  all  cases, 
the  public  theatres  —  being  established  for  the  civic 
welfare  of  their  communities — have  been  safe 
guarded  by  reliable  and  perennial  trusteeships. 

Therefore  the  theatre  buildings  are  as  much  the  home 
of  the  people  as  the  public  libraries,  and  their  rules  and 
privileges  are  as  consistently  respected. 

For  occasions  of  dramatic  performances  (which 
usually  occur  four  or  five  nights  in  the  week),  seats 
are  provided,  sometimes  gratis,  sometimes  for  a 
nominal  sum,  through  a  special  office,  whose  function 
is  the  equitable  distribution  of  seats. 

On  all  other  occasions  the  building  is  available  for 
public  purposes.  It  is  a  public  institution  not  merely 
by  night,  but  by  day.  For  here,  also,  the  once  perfunc 
tory  and  commonplace  incidents  of  civic  routine  take 
on  their  appropriate  significance  and  solemnity. 

Here  the  newly  arrived  immigrants  from  over  seas, 
with  minds  and  hearts  alert  for  the  message  and  mean 
ing  of  the  republic,  are  officially  convened  from  the 
gang-planks  and  given,  through  interpreters,  a  specific 

139 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

vista  of  hope  and  sympathy  in  their  new  land,  before 
being  submerged  in  its  millions.  Here  the  special 
ordination  of  citizenship  is  performed,  with  fit  and 
moving  ceremony.  Here  the  foreign  guest  of  state 
is  received  and  greeted.  Here  the  outgoing  regiments 
assemble  to  pray  before  marching  to  the  wars;  here 
they  reassemble  to  commemorate  their  dead.  Here 
the  modern  guilds  and  unions,  touched  once  more  by 
the  spirit  of  public  art  as  in  the  Middle  Age,  devise 
symbolic  pageantries  and  processions,  whose  festive 
influences  interpenetrate  the  life  of  the  streets  and  the 
market-places,  giving  appropriate  form  and  voice  to  that 
American  passion  for  festival  which  formerly  found  its 
chief  vent  in  the  marching  cohorts  of  Saint  Patrick 
and  the  tooting  horns  of  election  night.  Being  the 
house  of  life  in  its  fulness,  here  also  in  the  playhouse 
the  nation's  dead  heroes  lie  in  state,  for  without  the 
meaning  of  death,  life  has  no  fulness. 

Strange  again  that  these  potentialities  of  the  theatre 
once  brought  smiles  of  scepticism  to  the  lips  of  experts 
—  experts  who  were  accustomed  to  read  in  their  news 
papers  of  a  thousand  buried  cities  unearthed  from  the 
dust  of  Roman  and  Greek  dominions;  and  always, 
in  the  centre  of  each  ancient  city,  like  the  pupil  within 
the  iris  of  a  Cyclops'  eye,  the  civic  theatre  of  a  vanished 

140 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

people.  Yet  those  experts  took  from  that  fact  no  fore 
thought,  unless  to  recommend  the  excavation  of  more 
ruined  cities.  *  Besides  (they  would  say),  even  though 
we  may  grant  the  artistic  preeminence  of  Athens,  —  a 
single  commonwealth,  —  yet  that  preeminence  was 
based  in  class-servitude ;  whereas  our  nation  —  a  vast 
union  of  commonwealths  —  is  based  in  a  nobler  ideal 
of  human  freedom.  Moreover,  Rome  was  an  empire, 
and  we  are  a  democracy.  Her  ancient  theatres 
were  monuments  to  imperial  or  tyrannical  pride. 
What  analogy  can  they  bear  for  us  ? '  So  they  would 
reason.  And  still  it  never  occurred  to  them  that  we  in 
America  might  emulate  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients 
without  imitating  their  follies. 

Nevertheless,  we  made  the  experiment,  and  it  is 
open  to  all  to  compare  the  American  theatre  of  to-day 
with  that  of  yesterday. 

How,  then,  has  the  experiment  affected  the  pro 
fessions  of  the  actor  and  the  dramatist? 

The  actor,  rising  now  in  his  profession  by  native 
genius  and  technical  proficiency,  not  by  mere  per 
sonality  and  business  acumen,  is  no  longer  the  victim 
of  exaggerated  advertisement,  with  no  margin  of  leisure, 
corresponding  to  that  of  other  citizens,  in  which 
to  measure  himself  with  his  fellow-artists  and 


141 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

with  general  society.  He  is  no  longer  obliged,  by  the 
conditions  of  his  profession,  to  live  the  homeless  life 
of  a  travelling  Bohemian.  Instead,  acting  only  for  a 
few  nights  in  each  week  in  a  permanent  company  of 
artists,  associated  as  a  peer  with  the  leaders  of  his 
community,  he  may  both  study  his  own  art  and  engage 
in  normal  human  relations,  perfecting  himself  at  once 
as  an  artist  and  as  a  member  of  the  community. 

The  dramatist,  too,  now  rises  according  to  native 
and  technical  efficiency.  Being  secure  of  an  appro 
priate  salary,  according  to  his  gifts  as  a  craftsman,  he 
needs  no  longer  seek  vainly  to  reconcile  the  objects 
of  his  profession  with  those  of  a  speculative  business. 
When  he  seeks  to  interpret  nature  and  human  society, 
it  is  with  a  view  to  truth,  not  expediency.  When  he 
seeks  to  embody  a  dramatic  theme,  it  is  to  achieve 
dramatic  excellence,  not  theatrical  average;  otherwise 
his  work  will  not  meet  the  standards  of  the  professional 
masters,  who  choose  it  for  production.  With  the  new 
status  of  the  playhouse,  the  incentives  of  the  gambler 
have  been  taken  from  the  dramatist;  but  the  incentives 
of  the  artist  have  been  added  unto  him  a  hundred  fold. 
A  thousand  avenues  of  imagination  are  now  open  to 
him,  which  were  not  open  before  to  the  mind,  which 
must  of  necessity  calculate  beforehand  the  risk  of 

142 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

fortunes  to  middlemen  involved  in  exploring  untrodden 
paths.  Now  the  people,  and  his  message  to  the  people, 
are  his  only  concern.  A  new  freedom  and  a  new  re 
sponsibility  have  transformed  his  profession.  Hence 
forth,  and  for  the  first  time,  he  is  —  in  the  larger  mean 
ing  of  citizenship  —  a  citizen. 

Thus  endeth  the  tale  clipped  from  to 
morrow  evening's  Comet.  (The  tails  of  comets 
are  proverbially  nebulous.)  I  wonder  whether 
to-morrow's  newspaper,  like  to-morrow,  never 
comes ! 

But  now,  having  by  these  meteoric  methods 
alighted  on  our  Looking-glass  hill,  we  may 
sit  down  and  look  back  upon  the  two  questions 
which  sent  us  forth. 

First:  How  far  does  public  opinion  realize 
the  extraordinary  public  influence,  for  good 
or  for  evil,  of  the  dramatist's  profession? 

I  think  the  answer  has  been  suggested. 
Either  public  opinion  realizes  little  or  nothing 
of  that  vast  influence,  or  public  opinion  is 
inexcusably  remiss  in  failing  to  direct  that 
influence  into  the  channels  of  civic  welfare. 


143 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS    CITIZEN 

Of  this  alternative,  we  must  certainly  assume 
the  former  to  be  true.  Public  opinion  does 
not  realize  the  vast  scope  and  significance  of 
the  dramatist's  profession  as  a  civic  influence. 
Therefore,  it  has  become  one  of  the  important 
responsibilities  of  the  dramatist  as  citizen  to 
help  enlighten  public  opinion  with  regard  to 
the  fitting  status  of  his  profession.  And  this 
leads  to  our  second  question :  — 

How  far  is  public  opinion  ready  to  accord 
to  the  dramatist's  profession  equal  opportuni 
ties  with  other  professions  of  leadership? 

The  answer  to  this,  citizens,  lies  with 
you.  You,  and  other  intelligent  bodies 
like  you,  are  the  crucibles  of  public 
opinion,  in  which  maleficent  elements  may 
be  recombined  for  beneficent  ends.  The 
commercial  experts  of  the  theatre  are  right 
when  they  say  that  the  theatre,  as  an  insti 
tution,  is  what  you  make  it.  They  are  not 
concerned  by  self-interest,  however,  to  inform 
you  that,  if  you  will  take  the  trouble,  you  can 
make  it  a  very  different  and  a  better  institution. 
For  obvious  and  sensible  reasons,  the  com- 

144 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS    CITIZEN 

mercial  experts  themselves  will  not  take  the 
trouble.  If  you  expect  that,  you  will  wait 
forever  and  deserve  to  wait.  In  fact,  you  have 
been  waiting,  and  doing  little  else.  That  is 
the  deadlock  in  the  drama's  progress.  But 
if  you  will  take  the  trouble  to  analyze  theatrical 
conditions  dispassionately,  you  will  see  that 
the  first  step  necessary  to  permanently  estab 
lish  the  dramatic  profession  on  a  basis  of 
civic  dignity  and  usefulness  is  to  change  the 
logical  incentives  of  the  profession:  to  change 
its  prime  incentive  from  one  of  private  specu 
lation  for  personal  profit  to  one  of  public 
service  for  the  highest  reward  of  citizenship  — 
the  honor  of  wise  men. 

Public  opinion  has  accorded  this  w^iser  in 
centive  to  other  professions,  —  to  the  pro 
fession  of  the  doctor,  the  minister,  the  college 
president,  and  professor.  Why  does  public 
opinion  withhold  it  from  the  profession  of  the 
dramatist  ? 

Perhaps  because  the  dramatist's  profession 
is  itself  a  factor  in  creating  public  opinion 
opposed  to  its  own  higher  interests.  For 
*  145 


THE   DRAMATIST  AS    CITIZEN 

its  own  survival,  it  must  needs  exemplify 
attributes  which  conduce  to  a  low  opinion  of 
its  nature.  If  this  is  the  whole  reason,  then 
public  opinion  regarding  the  drama  may  be 
described  as  in  a  state  analogous  to  that  of 
forlorn  communities,  where  malpractice  in 
medicine  is  condoned,  because  the  practi 
tioners  find  in  that  their  largest  means  of 
livelihood.  This,  however,  is  not  a  sufficient 
reason.  Public  opinion  is  lethargic,  not  cor 
rupt.  It  may  be  drugged  by  the  doses  it 
frequently  receives  from  the  profession;  but 
it  is  not  permanently  perverted.  To  believe 
so  would  be  to  impugn  the  wholesome  spirit 
of  our  nation  itself,  and  this  is  supported  by 
no  sane  evidence. 

A  more  fundamental  reason  for  the  lethargy 
of  public  opinion  toward  the  drama  is  that  this 
is  an  inherited  tendency  of  Anglo-Saxon  com 
munities.  In  England  itself  there  seems  little 
hope  of  the  people's  ever  taking  an  enlightened 
view  of  the  theatre's  civic  functions.  In 
America,  however,  where  fortunately  Anglo- 
Saxon  tradition  toward  public  art  is  being 

146 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

constantly  leavened  for  the  better  by  instincts 
and  traditions  inherited  from  other  peoples 
and  lands  —  in  America,  the  flood  tide  of  a 
noble  renascence  is  already  stirring  in  the  deeps 
of  the  democracy,  and  it  is  this  assurance  which 
gives  hope  and  pertinence  to  an  appeal  for 
public  opinion  to  revolutionize  its  traditional 
view  of  the  playhouse  as  a  place  ordained  for 
the  wise  to  seek  foolish  gratification,  and  the 
foolish  —  to  remain  as  they  are. 

There  is  yet  a  third  potent  reason  which  is 
embodied  in  the  old  adage,  "What  is  every 
body's  business,  is  nobody's  business." 

Everywhere,  it  is  everybody's  business  to 
seek  enjoyment;  in  the  theatre,  it  appears 
to  be  nobody's  business  to  show  them  how  to 
do  so,  to  their  own  best  advantage.  Yet  it  is 
precisely  this  "nobody's  business"  which  is 
undertaken,  with  organized  system,  by  our 
universities,  art  schools,  medical  colleges, 
churches,  clinics,  public  schools;  and  for  this 
"nobody's  business"  hundreds  of  millions 
of  dollars  are  donated  in  our  country,  by  com 
munities  and  individuals,  as  a  free  gift  for  the 

147 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS    CITIZEN 

cause  of  education:  the  cause  of  how  to  be 
happy  wisely.  Is  not  this  equally  the  legiti 
mate  cause  of  the  theatre  ?  If  so,  then  where 
is  a  single  million,  as  a  free  gift,  for  the  cause 
of  the  theatre? 

Sixteen  years  after  our  forefathers  landed 
on  the  barren  shores  of  Massachusetts  Bay 
they  brought  their  bushels  of  wheat,  by  assess 
ment,  to  Cambridge,  for  the  endowment  of 
Harvard  College.  They  realized  that  Learn 
ing  could  not  stand  on  its  own  legs  without 
a  full  stomach.  They  did  not  require  their 
ministers  to  compete  in  the  market  of  com 
merce.  There  they  were  wise ;  and  we  inherit 
that  wisdom.  Yet  they  were  not  sufficiently 
wise.  They  brought  no  wheat  for  the  sus 
tenance  of  art,  as  once  the  people  of  France 
brought  their  all,  and  dragged  their  very 
hearthstones,  to  upbuild  the  groins  and  sculp 
tures  of  their  cathedrals.  The  Puritans  still 
thought  it  well  for  one-half  of  man's  nature 
to  starve.  There  they  were  foolish;  and  we,  in 
large  measure,  inherit  that  folly.  How  much 
longer  must  the  sins  of  the  fathers  be  upon  us  ? 

148 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

The  drama  is  splendidly  capable  of  recon 
ciling  the  best  ideals  of  the  Puritan,  the  Greek, 
and  the  Cathedral  Builder;  of  blending  in 
one  lay  religion  the  service  of  the  state 
and  the  service  of  God.  The  drama,  I  say, 
is  capable  of  doing  this,  in  a  theatre  free  to 
do  so;  but  the  drama  is  not  able  to  do  this 
in  a  theatre  compelled  to  do  otherwise.  Let 
us  then  seek  to  reverse  the  old  adage,  and 
henceforth  let  the  "nobody's  business"  of 
freeing  the  theatre  from  commercial  bondage 
be  "everybody's  business"  who  loves  the 
drama  and  his  country. 

Those  who  will  gainsay  such  a  purpose  — 
and  they  will  be  many  and  sincere  —  are 
chiefly  those  who  do  not  believe  that  the  drama, 
the  dramatist's  profession,  holds  any  such 
lofty  possibilities  in  its  nature.  To  those  I 
reply:  The  possibilities  of  the  drama  are 
limited  only  by  the  possibilities  of  man. 
Search  history,  search  the  heart  of  man,  and 
you  will  find  both  precedent  and  prophecy 
for  the  ideal  of  the  drama  as  the  ritual  of  a  lay 
religion ;  for  the  ideal  of  the  theatre  as  a  civic 

149 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

temple  of  the  people.  And  if  the  precedents 
of  history  fail  to  convince,  let  it  be  remembered 
that  the  heart  of  man  is  itself  the  maker  of 
precedents. 

I  am  aware  —  for  reasons  which  I  have 
given  —  that  this  ideal  of  the  drama  must  at 
first  expect  the  ridicule  and  scepticism  even 
of  the  intelligent.  I  am  aware  that  the  neces 
sary  emancipation  of  the  theatre,  its  institution, 
may  lie  far  in  the  future,  and  meet  still  with  gen 
erations  of  strong  opponents.  Those  oppo 
nents,  like  the  opponents  of  another  national 
emancipation,  which  had  its  modest  beginnings 
in  our  country  seventy-five  years  ago,  will  ask 
that  the  institution  of  bondage  be  let  alone, 
and  allowed  still  further  to  spread  down  the 
generations. 

Nevertheless,  since  the  fundamental  issue 
of  Slavery  versus  Emancipation  is  as  clearly 
drawn  in  this  case  of  our  nation's  art  as  for 
merly  it  was  drawn  in  the  case  of  our  nation's 
life,  the  same  reply  may  fitly  be  made  to 
the  sincere  champions  of  commercialism  in 
the  theatre,  as  that  which  Lincoln  made  to 

150 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

the  champions  of  serfdom  in  the  republic,  — 
"All  they  ask  we  could  as  readily  grant,  if  we 
thought  slavery  right;  all  we  ask  they  could 
as  readily  grant,  if  they  thought  it  wrong." 
The  issue  is  clear:  Is  commercial  bondage  of 
a  nation's  art  to  be  considered  right  or  wrong  ? 

Yes,  without  drawing  our  analogy  to  the 
mythical  point  of  bloodshed,  we  may  yet  as 
well  begin  to  realize  now,  as  later  it  shall 
be  universally  realized,  that  this  question  of 
freedom  for  the  theatre  is  an  issue  far  larger 
than  concerns  the  theatre  alone.  It  is  an 
issue  as  comprehensive  as  the  relation  of  art 
itself  to  citizenship. 

Is  art  useful  to  the  state?  If  so,  shall  op 
portunity  be  accorded  for  art  to  perform  its 
highest  public  service?  Shall  our  artists, 
as  artists,  be  responsible  citizens,  or  time- 
servers  and  hangers-on  in  the  democracy? 
Shall  the  stigma  of  dilettantism  be  removed 
from  the  vocation  of  the  artist,  and  the  stigma 
of  showman's  wares  from  the  work  of  the 
dramatist?  Shall  art  merely  survive  by 
chance  and  individual  emolument,  or  shall  it 

151 


THE   DRAMATIST   AS    CITIZEN 

be  fostered,  sustained,  and  cherished  by  the 
organized  will  of  public  opinion?  On  the 
other  hand,  shall  our  average  American  citizen 
continue  to  be  stigmatized  as  a  Goth  and  a 
Vandal  in  imagination  and  taste?  Or  shall 
our  leading  citizens  take  forethought  and 
action  to  raise  the  aesthetic  average  of  citizen 
ship,  as  they  have  already  taken  steps  to  raise 
its  average  in  narrower  fields  of  education? 
Shall  America  herself,  so  long  taunted  by  the 
Old  World  for  her  lack  of  artists,  begin  to 
realize  why  she  lacks  artists,  and  begin  to 
remove  natural  competition  from  her  fields  of 
culture  as  assiduously  as  she  removes  it  from 
her  fields  of  agriculture?  Or  shall  our  crop 
of  artists  remain  meagre  and  sporadic  from 
ignorant  neglect,  while  our  crops  of  corn  and 
wheat  are  ploughed  and  sown  and  protected 
by  masterly  intelligence? 

These  are  questions,  the  rational  answers 
to  which  are  planks  in  the  platform  of  that 
sane  and  progressive  revolution,  which  is 
to-day  deeply  at  work  to  extirpate  all  eco 
nomic  servitude  from  our  body  politic. 

152 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

For  the  one  foremost  problem  of  art  to 
day  is  economic,  not  aesthetic.  Since  Art  is  a 
handing  onward  through  all  ages  of  the 
Spirit's  torches,  the  study  of  Old  Masters 
dwindles  in  importance  beside  the  more  vital 
study  of  how  to  enable  New  Masters  to  suc 
ceed  the  Old,  and  sustain  that  continuity  of 
leadership  which  is  civilization. 

Some  day  there  may  arise  amongst  us  a 
supreme  critic  of  American  potentialities  — 
a  George  Brandes  and  James  Bryce  in  one  — 
who  shall  detect  and  marshal  the  coessentials 
of  art  and  citizenship  with  such  lucid  sim 
plicity  that  we  shall  pause  aghast  to  behold 
ourselves  for  the  blundering  barbarians  we 
are. 

Such  a  critic,  having  for  his  subject  the 
Dramatist  as  Citizen,  will  illumine  its  myriad 
sides  far  more  adroitly  than  I  have  been  able 
to  lift  obscurity  from  even  one  or  two  of  its 
aspects.  In  characterizing  the  dramatist's 
particular  vocation,  he  will  simultaneously  re 
veal  the  larger  issues  of  his  subject.  .  With  r 
wisdom  and  humor  and  quiet  truth,  he  will 

153 


THE    DRAMATIST   AS   CITIZEN 

remorselessly  convince  us  that  public  opinion 
is  devoid  of  common  sense  or  of  conscience 
if  it  shall  continue  to  ignore  the  responsibili 
ties  and  the  rights  of  the  artist  as  citizen. 


154 


SELF-EXPRESSION  AND  THE  AMER 
ICAN  DRAMA 


SELF-EXPRESSION  AND  THE  AMER 
ICAN   DRAMA 

FROM  age  to  age,  and  in  every  peopled 
land,  a  vital  instinct,  imperishable  as 
fire,  appears  to  be  reborn;  a  bodiless  prin 
ciple,  peremptory  as  some  vast  genius  of  the 
elements,  seeks  embodiment.  Under  that 
yearning  Spirit's  touch,  the  institutions  of 
men  are  as  clay,  the  stubborn  neck  of  custom 
is  docile.  Stung  by  his  voice,  the  nations 
and  the  communities  awaken,  grow  articu 
late,  freshly  comprehend  one  another  and 
themselves;  moved  by  his  imperious  smile, 
they  do  his  bidding  wonderingly.  That  un- 
withstandable  spirit  is  the  Will-to-express. 

In  our  own  land  to-day  that  instinct  is 
seeking  an  old  instrument  for  freshly  vital 
ends;  it  is  seeking  the  drama  to  render  ar 
ticulate  the  American  people.  In  so  doing, 
however,  it  is  only  revealing  its  perennial 
nature.  More  than  once  on  our  soil  that 

157 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

instinct  has  asserted  itself.  Especially  about 
the  middle  of  the  last  century,  in  New  Eng 
land,  the  American  genius  became  eloquent 
in  the  forms  of  literature  through  the  self- 
expression  of  men  like  Hawthorne,  Emerson, 
Whittier,  Thoreau,  Poe,  Whitman,  Lowell, 
Longfellow,  Holmes,  and  the  seed  of  that 
self-expression  has  borne  hereditary  fruit  in 
the  works  of  our  American  literary  artists 
during  the  generations  since  then. 

Not  until  very  lately,  however,  has  that 
same  seed  —  the  incentive  to  self-expression 
—  lodged  itself  in  the  heart  and  mind  of  the 
American  dramatist.  Indeed,  so  little  is  such 
a  motive  associated  by  the  general  public  with 
their  conception  of  the  drama's  function,  so 
seldom  is  the  dramatist  himself  considered  in 
the  light  of  an  integral  artist,  that  it  becomes 
the  somewhat  anomalous  task  of  one  who 
would  seek  self-expression  through  the  drama 
as  a  fine  art  to  elucidate  and  justify  his 
alleged  right  to  so  unprecedented  a  vocation. 
That  a  writer  of  plays  should  assume  the 
same  independent  position  in  art  as  that 

158 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

which  has  long  since  been  yielded  by  public 
approbation  to  the  writer  of  novels  or  essays 
or  poems,  is  considered  by  an  astonishing 
majority  of  intelligent  persons  as  an  unten 
able  assumption. 

Why,  we  may  ask,  is  this  so?  Why  are 
intelligent  persons  thus  strongly  convinced 
that  the  dramatist  is  fundamentally  differen 
tiated  as  an  artist  from  the  novelist,  the  poet, 
the  essayist? 

An  interesting  light,  historical  and  con 
temporary,  is  thrown  upon  this  question  by 
a  recent  interview  in  the  New  York  Times 
with  Mr.  Bronson  Howard,1  justly  respected 
as  the  dean  of  American  dramatists.  Re 
ferring  to  the  contemporary  drama  in  English, 
which  he  classes  as  "the  work  of  English  and 
American  players  and  authors  collectively," 
Mr.  Howard  is  reported  as  saying:  "All 
English  dramatists  are  groping  in  a  blind 
alley.  They  have  stepped  aside  from  the 

1  The  present  article,  though  it  was  published  in  the  Sep 
tember  number  of  the  North  American  Review,  was  written 
some  months  before  the  death  of  Mr.  Howard,  in  August,  1908. 

159 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

avenue,  which  I  shall  designate  as  the  natural 
growth  of  the  English  drama.  The  drama 
tists  are  ignoring  their  public.  They  are 
writing  to  please  themselves.  They  are  pro 
mulgating  work  which  the  people  do  not 
want.  The  proof  thereof  is  the  colossal  per 
centage  of  failures  both  in  New  York  and 
London.  There  are  no  logical  reasons  to 
account  for  the  present  poverty  of  the  stage. 
With  an  increasing  population  and  a  growing 
interest  in  the  stage,  the  playwrights  should  be 
plentiful  and  their  brains  should  be  fertile. — I 
attribute  the  present  degeneration  of  the  Eng 
lish  drama  to  the  alluring  influence  of  the 
Continental  playwrights  who  are  providing 
their  own  stage  lavishly  with  successful  plays." 
This  opinion,  expressed  by  an  American 
dramatist  of  honorable  achievement,  repre 
sents  a  very  extensive  public  opinion  in 
America;  and  because  it  is  representative  I 
will  take  the  liberty  of  trying  to  analyze  Mr. 
Howard's  utterance  with  a  view  to  answering 
the  question  put  above :  Why  is  the  drama, 
as  a  mode  of  expression,  differentiated  funda- 

160 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

mentally  in  the  public  mind  from  other  forms 
of  literature? 

"  The  dramatists  are  ignoring  their  public. 
They  are  writing  to  phase  themselves" 

This  statement,  which,  for  our  purposes,  I 
will  take  as  applying  simply  to  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic,  made  by  one  who  has  been 
intimately  familiar  for  many  years  with  our 
native  drama  and  its  conditions,  corroborates 
my  statement  that  not  until  lately  has  the 
incentive  to  self-expression  lodged  itself  in  the 
American  dramatist. 

From  the  stated  tendency,  however,  I 
would  draw  a  different  inference  from  Mr. 
Howard's  —  not  the  "degeneration"  of  the 
present  drama,  but  its  regeneration.  And  in 
support  of  this  inference,  I  would  cite  a  com 
parison  —  an  American  comparison  —  be 
tween  the  present  period  of  our  native  drama 
and  the  New  England  period  of  our  native 
literature  in  its  beginnings.  And  in  this  con 
nection  I  would  suggest  the  following  queries : — 

If  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  in  his  own  day, 
had  not  sufficiently  ignored  his  contemporary 

M  161 


SELF-EXPRESSION  —  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

public  to  write  to  please  himself,  how  much 
would  the  public  of  to-day,  how  much 
would  the  public  of  to-morrow,  desire  to 
read  his  works? 

And  again  —  what  is,  perhaps,  even  more 
to  the  point:  If  he  had  not  written  to 
please  himself,  would  Hawthorne  have  written 
at  all?  Would  his  genius  have  expressed 
itself? 

If  Emerson,  Whittier,  Whitman,  Lowell, 
in  their  noblest  and  most  successful  utterances, 
had  not  been  moved  to  expression  by  an  inner 
necessity,  but,  instead,  had  been  moved  by 
the  outward  necessity  of  ascertaining  what 
their  public  wanted  them  to  say,  would  the 
public  of  their  day,  of  this  day,  and  of  to 
morrow  be  the  richer  or  the  poorer? 

And  again:  If  by  some  miraculous  dis 
pensation  those  same  poets,  reborn  with  the 
instinct  and  knowledge  of  stagecraft,  were 
to-day  writing  for  our  stage  to  please  them 
selves,  would  their  writings  be  therefore 
degenerative  to  our  drama? 

Such  queries,  and  the  deductions  they  sug- 
162 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

gest,  may  ring  strange  in  minds  unaccus 
tomed  to  correlate  the  drama  with  literature. 

In  any  event,  it  may  be  objected,  the  times 
of  those  American  poets  were  different  times 
from  these.  In  those  days  the  American 
public  was  attentive,  far  more  than  to-day, 
to  the  voice  of  literature  for  leadership  and 
counsel  and  inspiration,  and  therefore  it  be 
hooved  those  literary  leaders  to  remember 
their  responsibility  and  maintain  their  highest 
personal  standards  of  expression  accordingly., 
To-day  things  are  different;  to-day  "with  an 
increasing  population  and  a  growing  interest 
in  the  stage"  the  public  is  turning  yearly 
more  and  more  away  from  literature  proper 
toward  the  theatre  as>  the  seat  of  a  great  and 
vital  public  influence.  Times  are  changing. 
The  vehicle  of  national  expression  is  different. 

To  be  sure,  it  is  different;  but  how  dif 
ferent  ?  Doubtless  the  drama  is  an  other  ve 
hicle  than  the  lyric,  the  poem,  or  the  novel; 
but  is  it,  of  its  nature,  so  different  from  those 
forms  of  literature  that  it  is  functionally  un 
fitted  to  become  an  instrument  for  leadership, 

163 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

and  counsel,  and  inspiration?  And  if  it  is 
not  unfitted,  what,  then,  of  its  leaders  ?  Does 
it  not  behoove  them  all  the  more  to  remember 
their  responsibility  to  their  own  time  and  to 
maintain  their  highest  personal  standards 
accordingly?  In  other  words,  does  it  not 
to-day  behoove  our  dramatists,  for  the  pub 
lic's  sake,  "to  please  themselves";  "to  ignore 
their  public"  to  the  extent  of  wisely  serving  it  ? 
For  in  this  phrase,  "to  ignore  the  public," 
what  precisely  do  we  mean  by  "the  public"? 
The  demands  of  the  public,  of  course.  Yes, 
but  do  we  mean  the  reasonable  demands  of 
the  public,  or  the  foolish  demands  of  the 
public  ?  One  or  the  other  of  these,  of  course, 
we  must  ignore;  but  can  there  be  any  hesi 
tancy  as  to  which?  Or  if  the  public,  by  the 
nature  of  its  theatrical  education,  persists  in 
making  foolish  demands,  shall  we  therefore  be 
sceptical  of  human  nature,  or  of  the  nature  of 
present  theatrical  education  ?  No,  our  dram 
atists  cannot  believe  too  stanchly  in  the 
inherent  human  worth  of  the  public  ;  but  it 
is  precisely  because  they  have  so  long  ignored 

164 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

in  the  public  the  grand  and  beautiful  in 
stincts  which  are  potential  in  it,  and,  catered 
instead  to  the  petty  and  ignoble  instincts 
which  are  actual  in  it,  that  our  dramatists 
have  expressed  so  little  of  lasting  service  to 
the  public.  Yet  if  wre  are  to  uphold  in 
American  drama  standards  of  American 
achievement  in  literature,  this  custom  of  ig 
noring  potential  fineness  in  the  public  must 
be  rejected. 

Times  change  is,  indeed,  a  potent  proverb, 
which  is,  however,  modified  perennially  by 
another,  History  repeats  itself.  As  the  stimu 
lus  to  self-expression,  wrhich  at  the  beginning 
of  our  New  England  literary  period  bodied 
itself  forth  in  the  works  of  Hawthorne, 
Emerson,  and  "the  Transcendentalists,"  had 
its  origin  in  the  influence  of  independent  Con 
tinental  thinkers,  so  in  the  present  decade  the 
initial  impulse  to  self-expression  in  the  awaken 
ing  art  of  the  drama  is  doubtless  traceable  (to 
quote  Mr.  Howard  conversely)  "to  the  allur 
ing  influence  of  the  Continental  playwrights," 
who  are  not  only  "providing  their  own  stage 

165 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

lavishly  with  successful  plays,"  but  are  doing 
this  because  they  are  independent  thinkers 
writing  to  please  themselves. 

The  chief  contrast  of  their  Continental 
conditions  to  ours,  of  course,  is  this:  That 
their  Continental  public  has  long  since  been 
educated,  by  the  endowed  nature  of  its 
theatres,  to  demand  of  its  dramatists  that 
they  shall  please  themselves,  —  in  other  words, 
to  demand  of  their  dramatists  leadership  in 
taste  and  art  and  ideas;  and  their  most 
potent  and  convincing  leaders  are  followed 
most  loyally  by  the  public.  In  brief,  the 
Continental  public  has  gone  dramatically  to 
school  for  several  centuries;  it  is  artistically 
"grown  up,"  reasonable,  mature.  Ours  has 
been  left  to  shift  aimlessly  for  its  schooling, 
—  practically  unprovided  by  our  theatres  with 
formative  discipline  in  art,  good  taste,  or 
ideas,  —  while  it  has  spent  its  time  crying 
for  meaningless  diversion,  with  which,  for  a 
consideration,  it  has  been  provided  ad  nau 
seam,  to  the  result  that,  like  a  spoiled  child, 
it  has  lost  all  idea  of  what  it  is  crying  for. 

166 


SELF-EXPRESSION  —  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

Yet  this  principle  of  humoring  the  spoiled 
child,  frankly  admitted  as  such,  is  the  basic 
principle  on  which  our  dramatists  are  asked 
—  nay,  required,  like  it  or  lump  it,  if  they 
are  able — to  upbuild  a  modern  national  drama 
commensurate  with  that  of  Europe.  Obvi 
ously,  in  such  an  international  contest,  there 
is  involved  a  handicap.  In  fine  art  or  foot 
ball,  a  fair  start  is  part  of  the  real  game. 
How,  then,  before  our  game  begins,  to  achieve 
the  fair  start? 

Mr.  Howard  says  we  must  not  "ignore" 
the  aimless  cry  of  the  public;  otherwise  our 
work  will  "degenerate."  We  must  not  adopt 
the  Continental  principle  of  pleasing  our 
selves  as  artists;  otherwise  our  plays,  unlike 
the  Continental  plays,  will  fail.  But  Mr. 
Howard  probably  means  something  different; 
namely,  that  we  must  not  imitate  the  technique 
nor  appropriate  the  message  of  Continental 
art;  but  that  we  must  express  ourselves  in 
our  own  way.  And  with  this  I  beg  leave 
heartily  to  agree.  But  if  he  means  this,  he, 
and  with  him  a  large  public  opinion,  has 

167 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

strangely  confused  in  utterance  the  real  issue 
of  our  dramatic  problem,  which  is,  —  the 
necessity  for  self-expression  by  our  drama 
tists,  as  leaders,  not  as  followers,  of  the 
public. 

Leadership:  Here  is  the  heart  of  our  dis 
cussion,  and  the  answer  to  its  question: 
Why  is  the  drama  fundamentally  differentiated 
in  the  public  mind  from  other  forms  of  litera 
ture?  Here  is  the  answer. 

Literature  in  all  ages  has  been  the  voice  of 
leadership.  Whether  in  art,  or  scholarship, 
or  religion,  or  aesthetics,  or  statecraft,  self- 
expression,  the  voice  of  independent  con 
templation,  the  utterances  of  leadership,  and 
alone  of  leadership,  have  raised  themselves  to 
the  rank  of  literature.  As  such  they  have 
gained  the  reverence  of  time  for  large  public 
service.  The  speech  of  Lincoln  at  Gettys 
burg,  the  "Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard," 
the  comedy  of  "The  Tempest,"  each  is 
an  utterance  of  self-expression  without  which 
none  of  them  would  be  literature. 

Literature,  then,  by  charm,  and  exhorta- 
168 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

tion,  and  delight,  has  uplifted,  has  led  the 
public.  The  drama  is  filled  with  potential 
charm,  exhortation,  and  delight;  but  in  our 
country,  which  is  our  present  concern,  the 
drama  has  failed  to  enlist  those,  its  puissant 
capacities,  in  the  cause  of  leadership.  By  its 
own  refusal,  or  by  prohibitive  circumstance, 
it  has  failed  to  lead  the  public.  Rightly, 
therefore,  public  opinion  has  cast  the  drama 
forth  from  literature;  naturally,  the  public 
mind  has  dissociated  the  theatre  from  all 
relationship  to  institutions  for  the  public  weal. 

Nevertheless,  the  public  mind  has  not  done 
this  consciously,  by  thoughtful  analysis  of  the 
drama  and  the  theatre  in  their  real  nature. 
Instead,  the  public  mind,  from  habit  con 
sidering  the  theatre  a  concern  merely  of  its 
leisure  moments,  has  simply  not  considered 
the  nature  of  the  drama  at  all,  except  in  its 
transmogrified  aspect  as  a  kind  of  varicolored 
cordial  wherewith  the  public  is  recommended 
to  aid  its  after-dinner  digestion,  or  dyspepsia. 

In  this  capacity  it  receives  notorious  atten 
tion  in  the  daily  newspapers,  where  it  is 

169 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

diligently  exploited  and  advertised,  being, 
according  to  its  various  brands  and  samples, 
vouched  for  or  condemned  by  expert  tasters 
and  epicures. 

We  have  referred,  however,  to  the  drama 
in  its  true  nature  and  function.  Doubtless 
to  the  interests  of  that  a  submerged  minority 
of  the  public  is  already  devoted.  But  like 
wise  that  minority  tends  to  differentiate  the 
functions  of  drama  and  literature.  Why? 
Have  we  wholly  accounted  in  our  discussion 
for  this  fact?  I  believe  not.  The  reason,  I 
think,  lies  in  a  certain  real  distinction  between 
the  nature  of  drama  and  that  of  other  literary 
forms.  It  is  this  —  an  obvious  distinction, 
yet  frequently  ignored  in  critical  estimates  of 
plays : 

The  completed  work  of  the  dramatist  is 
not  the  completed  work  of  the  theatrical 
producer.  Unlike  the  finished  manuscript 
of  the  writer  of  novels,  lyrics,  or  essays,  which 
has  only  to  be  mechanically  copied  and  printed 
in  order  to  serve  its  public  purpose,  the  finished 
manuscript  of  the  playwright  must  be  bodied 

170 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

forth  and  interpreted,  physically  and  psychi 
cally,  by  a  considerable  number  of  living  person 
alities,  — actors,  scene  painters,  stage  managers, 
etc.  Indeed,  we  must  seek  an  allied  art,  not 
of  words  but  of  music,  in  order  to  cite  an 
adequate  analogy. 

The  composer  of  a  symphony  completes 
his  task  when  he  completes  his  score.  The 
public  purpose  of  his  score,  however,  is  con 
summated  by  the  director  of  a  symphony  or 
chestra,  by  means  of  his  musicians  and  their 
instruments.  Thus  the  printed  manuscript 
of  Shakspere  is  functionally  more  closely 
related  to  the  printed  score  of  Beethoven 
than  it  is  to  the  printed  manuscript  of  Milton. 

Yet  the  mere  outward  likeness  of  the  printed 
texts  of  dramatists  to  those  of  other  writers 
has  been  a  perennial  occasion  for  unsound 
literary  comparisons.  So  far,  however,  has 
the  standard  of  just  musical  appreciation 
already  exceeded  the  standards  of  dramatic 
and  literary  criticism  that  the  musical  critic 
who  should  confuse  the  accomplishment  of 
a  First  Violin  with  that  of  Beethoven  would 

171 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

probably  attract  public  remark;  whereas, 
in  dramatic  criticism,  the  unfathomable  iden 
tification  of  Garrick,  Sir  Henry  Irving,  or 
Mr.  Sothern  with  Shakspere  continues  to 
pleasurably  confound  the  unconscious  readers 
and  play-goers  of  the  generations. 

It  is  in  this  regard  that  the  growing  custom 
of  publishing  the  texts  of  modern  plays  is 
serving  a  useful  purpose  of  public  enlighten 
ment.  By  this,  of  course,  I  do  not  refer  to 
the  more  widespread  custom  of  publishing,  in 
connection  with  the  production  of  a  play, 
a  novelization  of  its  plot,  usually  designated 
as  the  "Book  of  the  Play";  for  this  custom, 
by  a  confusion  of  ideas,  only  obscures  more 
darkly  than  before  the  ends  and  means  of 
dramaturgy.  But  the  actual  naked  text  of 
the  play  itself  serves  to  inform  the  reader,  who 
is  also  a  play-goer,  in  the  first  principles,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  anatomy  of  the  dramatic  idea, 
—  to  train  him,  as  a  reader,  to  forecast  in 
his  own  mind  the  play's  production,  and  as 
a  play -goer,  to  criticise  the  play  as  the  naked 
image  which  production  is  truthfully  to  clothe. 

172 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

It  is  this  unusual  demand  upon  the  imagina 
tion  and  understanding  of  the  reader  which 
makes  the  reading  of  plays,  as  yet,  somewhat 
unpopular;  but  it  is  this  same  reaction  of 
mind  upon  text  which  causes  play-reading  as 
a  pleasure  almost  never  to  pall,  but  increas 
ing  the  appetite  by  custom,  to  dissatisfy  one 
thenceforward  with  all  less  imaginative  kinds 
of  reading.  Consulting  the  play's  text  as  the 
score,  so  to  speak,  of  the  dramatist's  symphony, 
the  reader  becomes  familiar  at  once  with 
the  creative  idea  and  with  the  essential  requi 
sites  of  its  interpretation. 

The  beneficial  results  of  this  more  intimate 
understanding  of  the  ends  and  means  of 
dramaturgy  are,  with  time,  likely  to  be  far- 
reaching.  For  with  the  resulting  enlighten 
ment  of  his  public,  the  dramatist  himself  will 
be  held  inevitably  to  higher  and  higher  stand 
ards  of  execution ;  for  there  in  his  text  he  may 
not  hide  a  poverty  of  ideas  behind  the  riches  of 
theatrical  production,  nor  sterility  of  imagina 
tion  behind  the  stage  carpenter,  nor  defective 
characterization  behind  the  resourceful  genius 

173 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

of  an  actor;  but  instead  any  false  slip  in  his 
human  construction,  any  distortion  in  tech 
nique,  any  shamming  of  ideal,  will  become  the 
more  glaring  to  his  vigilant  critic,  the  reader 
of  his  text. 

So,  too,  a  skilled  reader  of  plays  becomes  an 
informed  play-goer ;  he  will  judge  a  theatrical 
performance  as  the  interpretation  of  a  dra 
matic  idea ;  he  will  judge  acting  as  a  mode  of 
objectifying  the  creative  art  of  the  dramatist. 
So,  from  having  been  merely  a  layman,  he 
will  —  by  clarification  of  his  standards  — 
become  an  artist,  and  his  art  will  be  criticism. 
And  thus,  by  a  strong  spiral  of  mutual  en 
lightenment,  the  actor,  too,  will  mount  to  ever 
higher  standards  of  his  special  art,  —  inter 
pretation.  No  longer  receiving  applause  for 
the  substitution  of  personality  for  imper 
sonation,  and  prevented  by  informed  public 
opinion  from  assuming  an  irrelevant  dic 
tatorship  for  subordinating  the  dramatic  idea 
to  his  own  caprice,  the  actor  in  his  proper 
function  will  fall  newly  in  love  with  his 
vocation  as  the  subtlest  and  noblest  of  sym- 

174 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

phonic  players  —  the  artist  of  the  human 
instrument. 

In  such  a  rational  harmony  of  functions 
there  should  at  last  be  basis  for  the  existence 
of  a  vocation  now  practically  non-existent, 
save  as  it  is  temporarily  assumed,  with  de 
ficient  powers  or  training,  by  dramatist, 
actor,  stage-manager,  theatrical  producer,  or 
by  these  in  succession,  or  by  all  at  once,  to 
the  consequent  confusion  of  the  dramatic 
idea:  I  mean  the  vocation  of  Theatrical 
Director,  into  whose  hands  —  as  into  the 
hands  of  the  orchestra  director,  the  com 
poser  submits  his  score  —  the  dramatist 
should  be  able  to  submit  his  text,  with  secure 
confidence  of  its  being  properly  rendered  to 
the  public.  Over  all  the  multitudinous  factors 
and  instruments  of  theatrical  performance 
this  director,  trained  thereto  as  his  special 
life-work,  should  be  absolute  master,  and  his 
function  and  responsibility  should  be  to  effect 
by  those  instruments  the  harmonious  inter 
pretation  of  the  dramatic  idea  —  the  play. 

So  much  for  a  glimpse  toward  rational  con- 
175 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

ditions  which  do  not  exist.  The  contrasted  ex 
isting  conditions  of  maladjustment  between  the 
play  and  its  theatrical  production  constitute  a 
second  powerful  reason  why  the  drama  is 
divorced  from  literature  in  the  minds  of  in 
telligent  persons.  For  these  persons,  from 
constantly  viewing  the  production  of  plays 
by  a  theatre  unqualified  to  produce  plays 
without  distortion,  become  accustomed  to  view 
the  distorted  result  as  the  dramatic  idea, 
mistake  the  production  for  the  play  itself, 
the  actors  for  the  dramatis  personse.  The 
manner  of  acting  or  producing  a  play  becomes 
for  them  no  longer  a  means  but  an  end  in 
itself.  Thus  they  come  to  misconceive  the 
end  and  object  of  dramaturgy,  conceiving  that 
object  to  be  interpretation  instead  of  expres 
sion.  Because  a  play,  unlike  a  novel  or  essay, 
must,  by  its  nature,  be  interpreted  in  order 
to  fulfil  its  function,  they  conceive  its 
function  to  be  interpretation.  But  inter 
pretation  of  what?  Why,  of  the  actors, 
scenery,  etc.  And  so  a  great  number  of 
our  plays  themselves  have  actually  come  to 

176 


SELF-EXPRESSION  —  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

coincide  with  this  distorted  conception.  Thus 
the  art  of  the  drama  is  turned  wrong  side  out, 
the  functions  of  play  and  actor  are  reversed, 
and  the  play  itself  becomes  a  mere  vehicle 
for  interpreting  to  its  audience  the  personality 
of  an  actor,  or  the  ingenuity  of  a  stage-manager. 

Obviously,  intelligent  persons  will  not  view 
such  an  interpretative  vehicle  as  a  form  of 
literature,  since  literature  primarily  is  ex 
pression.  How,  then,  shall  these  persons  be 
persuaded  that  such  vehicles  are  not  true 
plays?  How  shall  they  be  enlightened  as  to 
the  true  function  of  dramatic  art? 

As  a  means  to  this  end,  I  have  referred  to 
the  publication  of  the  texts  of  plays;  but  I 
would  not,  of  course,  be  construed  as  meaning 
that  printing  and  reading  plays  can  alone 
produce  the  desired  effect.  Many  other 
factors  of  knowledge  and  emancipation  must 
contribute  to  that.  I  mean  only  that  the 
custom  of  publishing  plays  will  become  at 
least  a  real  drop  in  the  great  empty  bucket  of 
public  enlightenment  concerning  these  things. 
For  the  printed  play  will  gradually  accustom 
ir  177 


SELF-EXPRESSION—AMERICAN  DRAMA 

the  American  public  to  realize,  as  the  public 
in  France  and  Germany  has  long  since  realized, 
that  the  dramatic  form  is  a  legitimate  form 
of  self-expression,  so  that  the  universal  pub 
lishing  of  plays  will  become  as  normal  a 
custom  as  the  universal  publishing  of  novels. 
At  the  same  time  the  public  will  become  ex 
pert  in  the  special  art  of  reading  plays,  and 
thereby  it  will  learn  to  judge  them  by  standards 
not  of  the  so-called  "closet  drama,"  whose 
hybrid  standards  are  corruptive  of  sound 
dramaturgy,  but  by  those  of  the  theatre. 

But  —  I  hope  it  will  be  retorted  —  by 
standards  of  what  theatre?  By  standards 
of  the  theatre,  discordant,  uncorrelated,  mis 
directed,  as  we  know  it  to  exist,  or  by  stand 
ards  of  the  theatre  as  we  have  glimpsed  it 
above,  —  harmonious,  symphonic,  directed  by 
a  rational  unity? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  all-important 

to  the  subject  we  are  discussing. 

-\      To  one  who  seeks  authentically  to  express 

himself  in  the  forms  of  drama,   it  becomes 

sooner  or  later  a  temptation  to  ask  himself: 

178 


SELF-EXPRESSION  —  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

Shall  I  express  the  dramatic  ideas  which 
are  demanding  utterance  within  me,  because 
I  consider  them  beautiful,  or  critical  of  life, 
or  otherwise  worthy  of  communication,  and 
adapted  to  stage  craft,  albeit  they  are  better 
adapted  for  interpretation  by  unrealized  ra 
tional  conditions  of  the  theatre  than  by 
irrational  existing  ones?  Or  shall  I,  rather, 
choose  to  express  only  those  dramatic  ideas 
within  me,  or  seek  elsewhere  at  second  hand 
for  those  without,  which  are  readily  adapt 
able  to  existing  conditions  and  the  open 
market?  In  the  words  of  our  analogy,  shall 
I  try  to  write  a  symphony,  because  I  like  to, 
albeit  if  produced  there  is  only  a  leaderless, 
disorganized  orchestra  to  perform  it?  Or 
shall  I  write  a  popular  march,  albeit  I  do  not 
like  to,  because  it  is  likely  to  be  performed  by 
the  said  orchestra? 

However  the  dramatist  may  answer  these 
questions  for  himself,  it  is  certain  that  only 
one  answer  can  result  in  literature  and  in 
real  contribution  to  art.  For  the  work  which 
is  not  the  utterance  of  an  inward  creative 

179 


SELF-EXPRESSION— AMERICAN  DRAMA 

joy  is  not  a  work  of  leadership,  nor  of  large 
public  service.  No;  it  is  far  better  that  our 
playwrights  should  remain  sterile  than  that 
they  should  supply  a  meaningless  demand 
of  the  public.  There  is  far  less  need  of  so- 
called  "practical"  plays,  that  may  be  easily 
produced  by  a  theatre  misqualified  in  the  art 
of  production,  than  there  is  need  of  a  really 
practical  theatre  which  shall  stimulate  and 
fulfil  the  demands  put  upon  it  by  plays  com 
prehending  the  entire  dramatic  scope  of  self- 
expression. 

For  such  a  theatre  there  is  precedent  —  the 
much  cited  Theatre  Franpais,  for  example; 
yet  what  need  is  there  of  precedent  when  the 
issue  is  plain? 

Either  there  can  be  no  adequate  self- 
expression  in  our  drama,  or  there  must  be  a 
theatrical  institution  adapted  to  interpret  and 
stimulate  such  expression. 

In  America,  the  unprecedented  promise  of 
our  people,  the  nature  of  our  human  re 
sources  comprising  the  world's  inheritance, 
give  sound  conviction  for  believing  in  the 

180 


SELF-EXPRESSION  —  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

practical  establishment  of  such  an  institution 
—  unprecedented  in  efficacy  of  high  public 
service.  To  this  end  it  is  incumbent  upon 
all  citizens  and  artists  to  whom  the  theatre 
is  a  living  influence  to  consider  the  above 
issue  and  help  to  solve  it  rationally. 

But  as  the  seat  of  the  initial  creative  power 
of  the  theatre,  it  is  perhaps  most  incumbent 
upon  the  mind  of  the  dramatist  to  emancipate 
its  powers.  That  it  will  do  so  there  is  no 
reasonable  doubt.  The  continuity  of  Ameri 
can  literature  will  not  cease  at  the  theatre's 
doors.  A  new  century,  beautiful  and  terrible 
in  portent,  latent  with  unexampled  passion 
and  delight,  waits  to  be  expressed.  Already 
the  tide  of  ordained  expression  sets  toward 
the  art  of  the  drama :  the  result  is  inexorable. 
An  institution  which  is  unwilling,  or  unable, 
to  become  the  responsive  instrument  of  such 
an  art  will  cease  to  be,  and  another  shall  rise 
in  its  place,  and  subserve  the  Will-to-express. 


181 


ART  AND  DEMOCRACY 


ART  AND  DEMOCRACY1 

T~\EMOCRACY  and  art  are  matters  of  such 
^~^^  vitality  and  magnitude  that  you  will 
not,  I  take  it,  expect  me  to  attempt  any 
exhaustive  definition  or  comparison  of  their 
vast  influences.  I  will  only  describe  to  you  a 
certain  concrete  memory  wThich  may  perhaps 
serve  to  suggest,  for  this  occasion,  a  personal 
impression  and  conviction. 

I  remember  standing,  a  year  or  two  ago, 
in  the  studio  of  Saint- Gaudens,  watching 
some  of  his  assistants  at  work.  A  seated 
figure  of  colossal  size  was  being  pointed  up 
in  plastilene  from  a  small  completed  statue. 
The  process,  of  course,  was  simply  a  me 
chanical  one,  yet  it  seemed  strangely  to  repeat 
in  tangible  form  the  nebulous  creation  of  that 
work  in  the  mind  of  the  sculptor.  Still  half 
grotesquely  obscured  in  a  mass  of  clay-like 

1  Delivered  before  the  Society  for  Ethical  Culture,  New 
York,  on  Lincoln's  Birthday,  1908. 

185 


ART  AND   DEMOCRACY 

substance,  slowly,  very  slowly,  but  with  pre 
ternatural  sureness,  the  shape  and  features  of 
a  human  form  were  visibly  evolving  into  the 
sunlight,  projecting  upon  the  floor  at  my  feet 
a  still  undecipherable  shadow,  —  the  image 
of  the  image  of  a  dream.  What  that  seated 
figure  was,  might  as  yet  only  be  guessed. 
Power  was  there,  and  pensiveness,  and  in  the 
half-bowed  head,  already  discernible,  the  large 
lineaments  of  pathos.  Identity,  however,  was 
still  lacking. 

A  few  days  afterward,  I  went  to  the  studio 
again.  This  time  there,  was  no  doubt  what 
presence  I  was  in.  It  was  not  the  colossal 
proportions  of  the  seated  image  that  filled  the 
place  with  awe.  It  was  the  mighty  sense 
that  there  sat  Lincoln,  thinking.  Very  simply 
he  sat  there,  —  a  lank  figure  in  modern  coat 
and  trousers,  uncompromisingly  homely,  yet 
beautiful  by  personality.  One  hand  rested 
on  the  arm  of  his  chair,  the  other  on  his 
knee;  his  head  was  slightly  bowed;  he  was 
thinking. 

It  was  perhaps  easy  to  persuade  oneself 
186 


ART  AND   DEMOCRACY 

that  there  was  simply  a  statue  —  an  image  in 
plastilene.  "A  work  of  art"  we  name  it, 
and  so  it  is  appraised  by  connoisseurs  for  the 
craft  of  its  execution.  But  to  look  upon  that 
image,  and  to  feel  the  combined  compulsion 
of  the  subject  and  its  rendering,  is  to  experi 
ence  more  than  a  sense  of  aesthetic  achieve 
ment  :  it  is  to  experience  a  sense  of  history. 

That  statue,  now  cast  in  bronze,  will  be 
exhibited  for  the  first  time  next  month  here 
in  New  York,  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum. 
Of  the  many  who  will  then  look  upon  it,  a 
few,  who  are  themselves  artists  in  some  field, 
will  doubtless  admire  the  masterly  adroitness 
with  which  the  sculptor  has  treated  his  sub 
ject  technically;  the  unflinching  candor  with 
which  he  has  handled  the  commonplaces  of 
his  modern  material,  yet  selected  those  plastic 
elements  only  which  have  served  to  express 
the  life  and  total  reality  of  his  subject.  Here 
is  no  dead  wood  of  workmanship;  all  is 
vital.  These  artists  may  perhaps  feel  also 
the  compelling  personality  of  our  great  Presi 
dent  as  interpreted  by  our  great  sculptor,  yet 

187 


ART  AND  DEMOCRACY 

each  will  probably  be  inspired  with  a  longing 
to  become  in  his  own  sphere  —  not  a  Lincoln, 
but  a  Saint-Gaudens. 

A  far  greater  number  there  will  be  who 
will  feel  little  of  the  means  by  which  the 
sculptor  has  accomplished  his  end.  They 
will  feel  simply  the  end.  They  will  feel  an 
impression,  more  or  less  vague  and  inex 
pressible,  of  the  greater  reality  of  that 
seated  image  as  compared  with  themselves 
who  gaze  upon  it.  Whether  they  are  con 
scious  of  it  or  not,  the  mutable  clay  in  them 
selves  will  lay  its  homage  upon  the  knees  of 
the  immutable  bronze  and  cry  out  with 
ephemeral  prayer.  And  they  shall  not  go 
unanswered.  For  they  shall  bear  away  with 
them  a  sense  that  they,  too,  are  a  part  of  that 
higher  pageantry  which  passes  before  the 
thinking  eyes  of  the  image ;  that  they,  too,  as 
well  as  the  generation  of  the  Civil  War  and 
the  American  generations  to  come,  are  the 
objects  of  that  deep  and  solicitous  thought. 

And  even  if  that  image  should  be  melted 
before  their  eyes,  they  who  had  looked  upon 

188 


ART  AND   DEMOCRACY 

it  could  never  look  upon  history  as  before. 
For  they  would  have  experienced,  not  merely 
deduced,  the  causes  of  Lincoln's  immor 
tality.  Thus  each  of  those  many  will  have 
vaguely  aspired  to  be  a  Lincoln,  but  hardly 
a  Saint-Gaudens. 

A  remaining  few  there  may  be  who,  look 
ing  upon  the  statue,  shall  be  equally  moved 
by  the  genius  of  the  sculptor  and  of  the  states 
man.  They  will  realize  that  here  undoubtedly 
is  a  great  work  of  art;  and  here  also  un 
doubtedly  is  a  great  work  of  democracy. 
They  will  detect  the  kinship  that  exists  be 
tween  the  mind  which  controls  the  plastic 
motives  of  art  and  that  which  controls  the 
plastic  motives  of  men,  and  in  both  cases 
they  will  appraise  the  value  of  that  control 
by  a  single  criterion:  its  effectiveness  for 
human  happiness. 

Thus  they  will  recognize  how,  in  no  un 
certain  sense,  Lincoln  was,  as  statesman,  a 
Saint-Gaudens;  Saint-Gaudens,  as  artist,  a 
Lincoln.  The  equal  caliber  of  their  great 
ness  may,  of  course,  be  disputed,  but  not 

189 


ART  AND  DEMOCRACY 

the  nature  of  that  greatness.  Each  was  a 
master,  because  each  was  a  master-servant 
of  humanity.  The  great  common  basis  of 
their  fame  is  public  service. 

I  am  aware  that  to  a  large  majority  of 
persons  the  work  and  careers  of  these  two 
men  will  appear  as  sundered  as  the  antipo 
des;  nevertheless,  the  basis  of  my  compari 
son  I  believe  is  sound. 

On  the  one  hand,  there  exists  to-day  a 
world  of  pure  art,  so  called,  which  concerns 
itself  little,  or  not  at  all,  with  the  interests 
of  politics,  sociology,  statesmanship.  On  the 
other  hand,  is  a  world  of  democracy,  which 
concerns  itself  little,  or  not  at  all,  with  the 
interests  of  aesthetics,  artistry,  craftsmanship. 
The  world  of  art  complains  that  democracy 
ignores  the  concerns  of  beauty.  Democracy 
complains  that  the  world  of  art  ignores  the  con 
cerns  of  citizenship.  Both  frequently  deduce, 
therefore,  that  they  have  nothing  in  common. 

Now  the  complaint  of  both  is  valid,  but  not 
their  deduction.  For  true  democracy  is  vitally 
concerned  with  beauty,  and  true  art  is  vitally 

190 


ART  AND  DEMOCRACY 

concerned  with  citizenship.  When  each  is  true 
to  itself,  there  is  no  disruption  of  interests. 
Phidias  and  Pericles  had  no  quarrel.  Rec 
onciliation  of  their  aims  depends  only  upon 
the  recognition  by  each  of  its  proper  function. 
The  issue,  "art  for  art's  sake,"  is  as  mean 
ingless  as  "statesmanship  for  the  sake  of 
statesmanship."  For  if  the  former  have  any 
meaning,  it  can  only  mean,  art  for  the  sake 
of  excellence.  But  art  itself  is  expression. 
"Art  for  art's  sake"  must,  therefore,  mean, 
art  for  the  sake  of  expressing  that  which  is 
most  excellent.  But  what  is  that  which  is 
most  excellent  to  express  ?  That  surely  which 
conduces  to  the  greatest  human  happiness. 

Has  statesmanship  properly  any  other  aim 
than  this? 

In  every  nation,  then,  art  and  statesman 
ship  are  vital  concerns  of  the  people,  for  whose 
greatest  happiness  they  properly  exist.  The 
important  thing  is  for  the  people  to  realize 
this  truth,  and  to  impress  upon  both  that, 
in  neither  one  case  nor  the  other  can  there 
be  too  high  an  excellence  for  the  public  good. 

191 


ART  AND  DEMOCRACY 

Our  own  nation  is  no  exception  to  the 
validity  of  this  truth.  In  America,  the  kin 
ship  of  the  true  artist  and  the  true  statesman 
is  clear  and  legitimate:  both  are  children  of 
the  Commonweal.  And  the  noblest  function 
of  democracy  is  to  bear  sons  who  shall  ex 
cellently  express  —  for  their  countless  brothers 
that  are  dumb  and  incapable  —  the  excellent 
beauty  of  their  common  mother. 


192 


SOME  COMMENTS,   BY  WAY  OF 
EPILOGUE 


SOME  COMMENTS,  BY  WAY  OF 
EPILOGUE 

THE  author  has  preferred  to  let  the  text 
of  the  foregoing  addresses  remain  practi 
cally  as  written  for  their  original  purposes, 
and  to  add,  instead  of  to  incorporate,  the 
following  comments,  which  have  seemed  to 
him  pertinent:  — 

COMMENT  FOR  PAGE  106 

The  analysis  of  Vaudeville  here  given  has 
been  somewhat  misinterpreted  by  a  portion 
of  the  press.  When  this  address,  "The 
Drama  of  Democracy,"  was  delivered  by 
me  at  Columbia  University,  the  paragraphs 
concerning  Vaudeville  were  singled  out  for 
report  in  the  daily  newspapers,  and  were 
afterwards  quoted  by  some  of  the  weekly 
journals.  The  emphasis  of  these  reports 
seemed  to  convey  the  impression  that  I  had 
singled  out  the  Vaudeville  profession  as  an 

195 


SOME   COMMENTS 

object  of  "attack"  —  an  idea  which  is  far 
removed  from  my  intention  or  approval.  As 
I  have  had  frequent  occasion  to  repeat, 
reform  in  the  theatre  to-day  is  properly 
concerned  with  renovating  certain  large  con 
ditions  in  the  community;  it  is  not  properly 
concerned  with  picking  faults  in  individuals 
or  vocations  which  exist  because  of  those  con 
ditions. 

The  reference  to  Vaudeville  in  my  essay 
is  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  specifically 
the  operation  of  a  general  tendency  of  theat 
rical  business  —  the  tendency  which  I  have 
called  the  law  of  increasing  emotional  and 
decreasing  intellectual  demand. 

The  effects  of  that  tendency  are  observable 
almost  as  much  in  the  "legitimate"  business 
as  in  Vaudeville,  though  perhaps  not  as  con 
cretely  and  clearly,  and  those  effects  are  open 
to  interpretation  as  facts  by  all  interested  per 
sons,  in  and  out  of  the  theatrical  profession, 
without  thereby  casting  aspersion  on  the 
many  talented,  idealistic,  and  hard-working 
members  of  that  profession. 

196 


SOME  COMMENTS 

FOR  PAGE  108 

"Financial  risk"  is  the  elemental  evil  at 
the  root  of  all  theatrical  problems  discussed 
in  this  book.  It  is  involved,  of  course,  in  all 
theatrical  business,  "legitimate"  as  well  as 
Vaudeville.  It  is  an  universal  proposition  of 
existing  conditions,  yet  its  direct  corollaries, 
as  they  are  involved  in  the  art,  the  culture, 
and  the  ethics  of  our  communities,  are  al 
most  universally  ignored. 

Everywhere  it  is  known  and  admitted  that, 
under  these  present  conditions,  the  drama 
is  "  a  gamble,"  and  almost  everywhere  this  is 
admitted  writh  complacence  or  indifference. 
Yet  when  the  spirit  which  delights  in  "a 
gamble"  raises  its  obnoxious  head  in  our 
legislatures,  our  insurance  companies,  our 
public  school  boards,  and  even  our  race 
tracks,  public  revolt  instantly  asserts  itself, 
and  the  extirpation  of  the  "gamble"  becomes 
frequently  the  object  of  a  civic  campaign. 

It  would  seem  superfluous  to  add  that  until 
the  object  of  theatrical  productions  ceases 

197 


SOME  COMMENTS 

to  be  "a  gamble,"  the  drama  cannot  become, 
what  its  capacities  fit  it  to  be,  a  vital  and 
constructive  force  of  civilization. 

FOR  PAGE  118 

"A  new  and  nobler  art  of  impersonation" 
is,  of  course,  desirable  and  necessary  for  the 
development  of  our  native  drama.  Here  I 
have  done  no  more  than  refer  to  it,  as  the 
subject  involves  an  essay  in  itself. 

As  plays  may  be  made  or  marred  by  their 
interpretation,  it  follows  that  all  rational 
steps  in  developing  a  new  dramaturgy  must 
be  accompanied  by  rational  steps  in  develop 
ing  a  school  of  actors  trained  to  the  needs  of 
the  dramatist. 

At  present,  actors  (when  they  receive  any 
schooling  at  all)  are,  of  necessity,  trained  to 
the  needs  not  primarily  of  the  dramatist,  but 
of  the  theatrical  business,  chiefly  classifiable 
under  the  needs  of  the  manager  for  a  partic 
ular  personality  and  salary,  or  of  the  "star" 
for  a  particular  stature,  voice,  etc. 

These  needs  are  practical  considerations 
198 


SOME   COMMENTS 

at  all  times,  and  have  bearing  upon  the  actor's 
vocation  under  any  conditions;  but  these 
needs  now  are  necessarily  circumscribed  by 
the  limited  scope  in  art  of  the  plays  which 
the  theatrical  business  can  risk  producing, 
and  by  the  consequent  low  standards  of  criti 
cism  in  acting,  which  are  inculcated  thereby 
in  the  public. 

For  a  wider  scope  in  art,  and  for  a  greater 
comprehensiveness  in  training,  actors  are,  as 
a  class,  keenly  desirous  themselves. 

FOR  PAGES  52,  53,  54 

By  "the  Law  of  Dramatic  Deterioration" 
I  do  not,  of  course,  intend  anything  analogous 
to  an  absolute  law,  such  as  a  law  of  nature. 
By  "law,"  in  that  phrase,  I  mean  no  more  than 
an  observable  tendency,  based  in  the  psycho 
logical  laws  of  human  nature. 

But  it  may  be  questioned:  In  looking 
back  over  the  history  of  our  theatre,  especially 
over  its  history  during  the  last  five  or  ten 
years,  is  such  a  tendency  observable?  On 
the  contrary,  is  not  our  theatre  better,  in  plays, 

199 


SOME  COMMENTS 

acting,  and  efficient  organization  than  ever 
before  ? 

This  is  a  valid  question  to  put,  and  because 
we  must  certainly  answer  it  in  the  affirmative, 
the  conclusion  may  seem  to  follow  that  no 
such  tendency  as  the  Law  of  Dramatic  Dete 
rioration  exists. 

A  little  further  Analysis,  however,  leads,  I 
think,  to  the  opposite  conclusion. 

The  requirements  of  theatrical  business 
being  what  they  are,  it  will  hardly  be  denied 
that  the  law  of  increasing  emotional  and 
decreasing  intellectual  demand  is  a  law  which 
presumably,  in  the  long  run,  will  best  fulfil 
those  requirements. 

Why,  then,  is  our  theatrical  situation  un 
deniably  better  than  ten  years  ago,  —  than 
five  years  ago  ?  —  undeniably  full  of  fine 
promise,  accomplishment  increasingly  fine? 
—  undeniably  not  deteriorated  ? 

In  a  word,  I  reply,  because  the  theatrical 
situation  is  becoming  part  of  a  national  situa 
tion.  In  spite  of  itself,  the  theatre  is  feeling 
the  compulsive  stress  of  an  awakened  conscious- 

200 


SOME   COMMENTS 

ness  in  the  democracy.  In  that  national 
awakening  which  also  is  world-wide,  lies  the 
exhilarating  promise  of  the  theatre  to-day.  In 
that  awakening,  I  may  add,  lies  the  relevancy 
of  the  sharper  criticism  which  to-day  is  being 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  theatre,  better 
though  it  be  —  a  criticism  which,  while  it 
acknowledges  that  betterment,  analyzes  it, 
and  understands  the  real  causes  of  its  being. 

In  brief,  the  Law  of  Dramatic  Deterioration 
is  at  work  now  in  the  theatre  w^ith  greater  po 
tency  than  ever  before ;  but  likewise  it  is  being 
combated,  and  in  part  checked,  by  other  forces, 
greater  than  have  ever  opposed  it  before  — 
forces  arising  not  from  within  the  theatre,  but 
from  outside  it;  the  forces  of  national  regen 
eration,  the  forces  of  renascent  democracy. 

Therefore,  if  our  theatrical  situation  is 
better  than  ever  before,  it  is  not  due  to  the 
tendency  which  underlies  theatrical  business, 
but  to  the  tendencies  which  underlie  intelli 
gent  democracy. 

In  those  renascent  forces  of  democracy  we 
do  well  to  put  hope  and  faith.  Yet  ilw  very 

201 


SOME  COMMENTS 

idea  of  renascence  implies  a  possible  waning  of 
forces.  And  therefore  it  is  wise  that,  during 
their  eras  of  Jlner  ideals  involving  the  common 
interest,  men  should  take  action  of  foresight, 
and  embody  those  ideals  in  strong  institutions, 
permanently  safeguarded  against  the  forces 
alike  of  ignorance  and  of  individualism. 

To  that  end  men  have  endowed  universities; 
to  that  end  they  will  yet  endow  theatres. 

FOB  PAGE  52 

To  the  majority  of  our  play-goers,  even 
to-day,  the  words  drama  and  acting  are  practi 
cally  synonymous.  To  them  dramaturgy  is  a 
term  of  vague  or  no  import;  for  them,  the 
actors  are  "the  show."  This  confusion  in  the 
public  mind  between  the  arts  of  actor  and 
dramatist  —  of  interpretation  and  creation  — 
has  been  nurtured  by  theatrical  tradition  from 
the  earliest  advent  of  the  strolling  player  in 
America  to  the  present  acme  of  the  star  system. 

On  September  5, 1905,  The  New  York  Com 
mercial  published  a  compilation  of  American 
theatrical  anecdote  and  history,  entitled :  "The 

202 


SOME  COMMENTS 

First  Dramatic  Annual."  It  consisted  of  arti 
cles,  signed  by  well-known  members  of  the 
profession,  reminiscent  of  the  American  stage 
for  many  years  past.  The  writers  recalled  a 
host  of  actors  and  actresses,  more  or  less  dis 
tinguished,  all  dear  to  the  people:  Edwin 
Booth,  Lester  Wallack,  John  McCulloch, 
Maurice  Barry  more,  Mrs.  John  Drew,  Law 
rence  Barrett,  and  so  on.  Throughout  the 
entire  compilation,  however,  there  is  hardly  an 
allusion  to  an  American  dramatist.  Obviously, 
in  those  reminiscences,  the  players,  not  the 
plays,  represent  the  vital  past  of  the  American 
theatre.  Some  of  the  old  plays,  to  be  sure,  are 
recalled  in  memories  of  "The  Banker's  Daugh 
ter,"  "The  Still  Alarm,"  "The  Henrietta," 
"Hazel  Kirke,"  "The  Two  Orphans,"  and 
others,  but  always  as  vehicles  for  some  favorite 
"star." 

Again,  in  a  critical  digest *  of  our  New  York 
stage,  written  by  Mr.  Norman  Hapgood  as 
late  as  1901,  and  treating  of  the  years  1897- 

1  "  The  Stage  in  America,"  The  Macmillan  Co.,  Ne\v 
York. 

203 


SOME  COMMENTS 

1 900,  the  chapter  headings  are  significant.  Out 
of  seventeen  chapters,  eight  headings,  dealing 
with  New  York  productions,  read  as  follows :  — 

1.  Recent  Shakspere :  Tragedy. 

2.  Ibsen. 

3.  Foreign  Tragedy. 

4.  Goethe,  Schiller,  Lessing. 

5.  Rostand. 

6.  Pinero,  Shaw,  Jones. 

7.  Other  British  Importations. 

8.  From  the  French. 

Of  the  remaining  nine  headings,  only  one  — 
treating  of  the  late  James  Herne  and  Mr. 
William  Gillette  —  deals  with  work  by  Ameri 
can  dramatists.  Throughout  the  volume,  how 
ever,  are  discussed  the  histrionic  technique  and 
personal  gifts  of  many  accomplished  actors  and 
actresses,  such  as:  Margaret  Anglin,  Julia 
Arthur,  John  Drew,  Mrs.  Fiske,  Nat  Good 
win,  Julia  Marlowe,  Richard  Mansfield,  Henry 
Miller,  Ada  Rehan,  Eleanor  Robson,  E.  H. 
Sothern,  Otis  Skinner. 

Since  the  date  of  Mr.  Hapgood's  book,  only 
one  critical  digest  of  our  stage  during  the  in- 

204 


SOME   COMMENTS 

terval  since  1900  has  appeared  as  a  volume. 
In  Mr.  Walter  P.  Eaton's  stimulating  book,1 
published  in  the  autumn  of  1908,  an  important 
increase  of  emphasis  upon  dramaturgy  is  evi 
denced.  Nevertheless,  it  still  remains  true  that 
no  American  dramatist  has  yet  attained  such 
rank  in  the  art  of  play- writing  as  Edwin  Booth 
attained  in  the  art  of  acting.  The  obvious 
reason  for  this  fact  also  remains  in  force :  the 
American  dramatist  has  existed  chiefly  for  the 
sake  of  the  actor;  the  creative  art  has  been 
subservient  to  the  interpretative. 

FOR  PAGES  82  AND  86 

The  conditions  of  Endowment  are  not  the 
conditions  of  Subsidy  by  Subscription. 

This  truth  would  seem  to  be  obvious,  yet 
there  is  much  popular  misconception  on  the 
subject.  Some  theatrical  enterprises  supported 
by  subscription  have  been  frequently  alluded 
to  in  the  press  as  "endowed"  theatres. 
Likewise  the  principle  of  subscription  is  often 

1  "The  American  Stage  of  To-day:"  Small,  Maynard 
&  Co.,  Boston. 

205 


SOME  COMMENTS 

vaguely  referred  to  as  being  the  same  as  that 
of  endowment,  or  practically  equivalent  to  it. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  principle  of  endow 
ment  has  never  been  tried  in  America,  nor, 
so  far  as  the  writer  knows,  has  it  ever  been 
uncompromisingly  adopted  in  the  case  of  any 
theatre  proposed  or  already  projected  in  this 
country. 

Between  subscription  and  endowment  there 
is  an  impassable  chasm  of  principle.  The 
former  is  a  makeshift,  the  latter  a  solution. 
Subsidy  of  art  by  subscription  does  not  recog 
nize  the  right  of  art  to  perpetual  freedom  from 
commercial  competition;  endowment  does 
recognize  that  right.  Subscription  releases  art 
from  subjection  on  a  temporary  parole;  en 
dowment  signs  its  emancipation  proclama 
tion. 

Being  compelled,  for  its  own  survival,  to 
appeal  to  existing  public  standards  of  taste 
within  a  given  few  weeks,  or  months,  or  sea 
sons,  a  theatre  supported  only  by  subscrip 
tion  is  thereby  prevented  from  leading  public 
taste;  yet  to  enable  it  to  lead  public  taste  is 

206 


SOME  COMMENTS 

presumably  the  very  object  of  the  subscription ; 
therefore,  the  enterprise  is  infected  from  the 
start  with  an  innate  compromise  which  tends 
to  undermine  the  ideal  at  stake. 

Thus,  at  best,  the  principle  of  subscription 
may  only  check  or  defer  the  operation  of  the 
Law  of  Dramatic  Deterioration;  whereas  the 
principle  of  endowment  may  annul  it. 

At  worst,  the  principle  of  subscription  may 
—  by  its  failure  to  check  that  law  at  the  outset, 
and  by  the  consequent  failure  of  its  special 
enterprise  —  shake  public  faith  in  the  cause 
of  endowment  with  which  it  is  so  frequently 
confused  in  principle. 

In  any  event,  by  seeking  to  subsidize  a 
business  instead  of  an  art,  subscription  serves 
to  obscure  the  real  issue  of  dramatic  emanci 
pation  —  the  issue  whether  the  theatre's 
function  in  the  community  shall  be  that  of 
art  or  business. 

For  an  effectual  business  needs  no  subsidy; 
but  an  effectual  art  cannot  live  without  it. 

Men  of  wealth,  who  endow  museums, 
libraries,  universities,  do  so,  presumably,  be- 

207 


SOME  COMMENTS 

cause  they  believe  in  the  special  causes  of 
those  institutions,  and  wish  to  serve  them. 
Yet  men  of  wealth,  who  believe  in  the  cause 
of  the  theatre  and  wish  to  serve  it,  have  so  far 
hesitated  to  endow  the  theatre,  as  museums, 
libraries,  and  universities  are  endowed.  In 
stead,  when  they  have  contributed  money  in 
its  cause,  they  have  subsidized  it  as  a  business, 
in  the  vague  apprehension  that  thus  they  were 
subsidizing  it  as  an  art.  And  always  they 
have  proposed  to  get  at  least  a  percentage  of 
their  money  back. 

It  would  sound  strange  to  one  of  our  uni 
versity  presidents  to  receive  the  offer  of  a  great 
sum  for  endowment  by  a  philanthropist,  upon 
the  stipulation  that  the  university  should  show 
good  security  for  returning  to  the  philanthro 
pist  a  certain  per  cent  on  the  amount  of  his 
endowment.  Founded  upon  such  a  financial 
basis,  a  medical  school,  a  museum,  an  insti 
tute  of  scientific  research,  would  have  a  hard 
scramble  for  existence,  its  special  cause  could 
hardly  be  expected  to  thrive  in  the  community, 
its  staff  and  equipment  could  hardly  be  ex- 

208 


SOME    COMMENTS 

pected  to  fulfil  effectually  the  objects  for  which 
it  was  founded. 

The  outright  endowment  of  theatres  —  the 
idea  of  which,  in  this  country,  is  usually  con 
sidered  as  an  impracticable  dream  —  is  to-day 
a  proved  actuality  in  several  of  the  countries 
of  Europe.  In  Germany  especially,  theatrical 
endowment,  so  far  from  being  chimerical,  is  a 
commonplace;  and,  in  consequence,  there  is 
probably  no  other  modern  nation  in  which  the 
theatre,  as  an  institution,  is  so  effectual  an 
instrument  of  social  and  civic  ideas. 

In  the  light  of  these  facts  and  comparisons, 
are  not  the  following  propositions  reason 
able? 

The  permanent  emancipation  of  dramatic 
art  from  theatrical  business  is  a  special 
cause. 

The  success  of  that  special  cause  would 
permanently  benefit  the  nation. 

A  cause  whose  success  would  permanently 
benefit  the  nation  is  a  cause  which  deserves 
the   support  of  all  citizens  able  to  promote 
the  efficient  means  to  its  success, 
p  209 


SOME    COMMENTS 

The  efficient  means  to  the  success  of  the 
drama's  special  cause  is  endowment. 

Therefore, 

The  drama's  special  cause  should  be  en 
dowed  by  citizens  able  to  endow  it. 


210 


A  LIST  OF  PLAYS 


BY   WINSTON    CHURCHILL 

The  Title-Mart  75  cents  net 

A  comedy  of  American  Society,  wherein  love  and  the 
young  folks  go  their  way  in  spite  of  their  elders  and 
ambition. 

BY   CLYDE    FITCH 

The  Climbers  75  cents  net 

The  Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes  75  cents  net 

Her  Own  Way  75  cents  net 

The  Stubbornness  of  Geraldine  75  cents  net 

The  Truth  75  cents  net 

Ingenious  satires  on  modern  society,  unhackneyed  in 
incident,  piquant  in  humor,  showing  minute  observation 
happily  used.  Each  is  bound  in  cloth,  with  white  paper 
label. 

BY   THOMAS    HARDY 

The  Dynasts  :  a  Drama  of  the 

Napoleonic  Wars  fa  Three  Parts  Each  $1.50  net 
BY   LAURENCE   HOUSMAN 

Bethlehem  :  A  Musical  Nativity 

Play  $1^25  net 


BY   HENRY   ARTHUR   JONES 

Mrs.  Dane's  Defence  75  cents  net 

Michael  and  His  Lost  Angel  75  cents  net 

Rebellious  Susan  75  cents  net 

Saints  and  Sinners  75  cents  net 


BY   HENRY   ARTHUR  JONES    (Continued) 

The  Crusaders  75  cents  net 

The  Infidel  75  cents  net 

The  Tempter  75  cents  net 

The  Whitewashing  of  Julia  75  cents  net 

Each  of  these  well-known  plays  is  bound  in  cloth,  with 
white  paper  label. 

BY  JACK   LONDON 

Scorn  of  Women  Cloth,  $1.25  net 

The  scenes  are  laid  in  the  far  north,  Mr.  London's  special 
province. 

BY   PERCY   MACKAYE 

The  Canterbury  Pilgrims  $1.25  net 
Fenris  the  Wolf.     A  Tragedy         $1.25  net 

Jeanne  d'Arc  $1.25  net 

The  Scarecrow  $1.25  net 

Mater  $1.25  net 

Sappho  and  Phaon  $1.25  net 

BY   STEPHEN   PHILLIPS 

Nero  $1.25  net 

Ulysses  $1.25  net 

The  Sin  of  David  $1.25  net 

Poignant  dramas  which,  according  to  the  best  critics, 
mark  their  author  as  the  greatest  writer  of  dramatic 
verse  in  England  since  Elizabethan  times. 

BY   STEPHEN    PHILLIPS  and  J.   COMYNS    CARR 
Faust  $1.25  net 


BY   ARTHUR   UPSON 

The  City  (a  drama)  and  Other 

Poems  $1.25  net 

BY   SARAH    KING   WILEY 

Alcestis  (a  play)  and  Other  Poems  75  cents  net 
The  Coming  of  Philibert  $1.25  net 

Mr.   WILLIAM    WINTER'S   Version  of 

Mary  of  Magdala  #1.25  net 

An  adaptation  from  the  original  of  Paul  Heyse  ;  used  by 
Mrs.  Fiske. 

BY   WILLIAM   BUTLER   YEATS 

Where  there  is  Nothing          Cloth,  $1.25  net 

Limited  large  paper  edition,  $5.00  net 

The  Hour  Glass  and  Other  Plays    $1.25  net 
In  the  Seven  Woods  $1.00  net 

NOTE. — Volume  II.  of  the  Collected  Edition  of  Mr. 
Yeats's  Poetical  Works  includes  five  of  his  dramas  in 
verse :  "  The  Countess  Cathleen,"  "  The  Land  of  Heart's 
Desire,"  "  The  King's  Threshold,"  "  On  Baile's  Strand," 
and  "The  Shadowy  Waters."  Cloth,  $1.75  net 

BY  WILLIAM   BUTLER  YEATS  and  Lady  GREGORY 

The  Unicorn  from  the  Stars,  and 

Other  Plays  $1.50  net 

Attractively  bound  in  decorated  cloth. 

BY   ISRAEL   ZANGWILL 

Author  of  "  Children  of  the  Ghetto,"  etc. 

The  Melting-Pot  Ready  in  September,  1909 

3 


The  English  Religious  Drama 

By  KATHARINE  LEE  BATES,  Wellesley  College 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $1.50  net 

History  of  English  Dramatic  Literature  to 
the  Death  of  Queen  Anne 

By  A.  W.  WARD,  author  of  "  Chaucer  "  (English  Men 
of  Letters  Series)  In  three  8vo  vols.,  $9.00  net 

The  Stage  in  America 

By  NORMAN  HAPGOOD  Cloth,  $1*75  net 

The  Life  and  Art  of  Edwin  Booth 

By  WILLIAM  WINTER 

With  portrait,  Miniature  Series,  $1.00  net 

The  Life  and  Art  of  Joseph  Jefferson 

By  WILLIAM  WINTER        With  illustrations,  $2.25  net 

Types  of  Tragic  Drama 

By  C.  E.  VAUGHAN  Cloth,  I2mo,  $1.60  net 

Lectures  on  Dramatic  Art  and  Literature 

By  A.  W.  SCHLEGEL  .       Cloth,  I2mo,  $1.00  net 

The  English  Chronicle  Play 

By  F.  E.  SCHELLING  Cloth,  I2mo,  $2.00  net 

The  English  Heroic  Play 

By  L.  N.  CHASE  Cloth,  I2mo,  $2.00  net 


PUBLISHED    BY 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

64-66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

4 


m 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


RETURN  TO  the  circulation  desk  of  any 
University  of  California  Library 

or  to  the 

NORTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 
Bldg.  400,  Richmond  Field  Station 
University  of  California 
Richmond,  CA  94804-4698 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

•  2-month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling 
(510)642-6753 

•  1-year  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing 
books  to  NRLF 

•  Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made 
4  days  prior  to  due  date 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 
DEC  0  1  2006 


DD20   12M   1-05 


nu. 


VB   14835 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


